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France of the French 




Photo by 



Pirou 



M. FALLIERES 



France of the French 



By 
Edward Harrison Barker 

Author of 
"Wayfaring in France," 
"Wanderings by Southern Waters," 
" Two Summers in Guyenne," 
&c. 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

^53-157 Fifth Avenue 
1908 






I 7 t^ A /% y" 

/ / 



PREFACE ' 

The interest felt by English-speaking people — at all events 
by those of Great Britain — in whatever relates to France has 
received of recent years a stimulus the effects of which have 
been manifest in a variety of ways. The complete disappear- 
ance of those political causes of discord which for so long a 
period fostered reciprocal distrust has had, among other conse- 
quences, that of greatly strengthening in the two nations the 
wish to know one another better and therefore to clear their 
minds of all false impressions and engrained prejudices. A 
book that responds strictly to the title '* France of the 
French " seems therefore to be a need of the day. My qualifi- 
cation to write such a work is the time that I have lived in 
this country in close intimacy with the French of Paris and 
of the provinces. It is a period that covers three decades, 
and one which has been singularly full of the materials of 
history as well as amazingly prolific of new movements of mind 
in relation to the arts, the sciences, and even the social order. 
The future may class it with the greatest of all epochs of 
French intellectual activity. 

When a writer has spent a long course of years in a foreign 
country he needs to have his interest awakened in many things, 
which by force of custom or familiarity may have ceased to 
stir his curiosity or surprise. In writing ** France of the 
French," I have found this interest return to me, such as I 
knew it in the days when I was a " wayfarer " on the roads 
and by the rivers, through forests and in desert places, of this 
pleasant land, and before such wandering to gather knowledge 
and impressions had to yield to official duties. 

^ While this book was passing through the press, the death of M. Sardou 
was announced. 



Vi PREFACE 

I think it will be recognised that the ensuing pages have 
been written without prejudice, as also without any intention 
to soften shadows that exist, such as must be indicated in 
true pictures of any nation's life and customs. 

A glance at the contents of this small volume will suffice to 
show that the subjects of which it treats would fill many 
volumes if exhaustively dealt with. Lacunae are therefore 
inseparable from the work. Nothing more has been attempted 
than to produce a book of general information concerning the 
life and genius of the French people, with especial reference 
to contemporary France. An endeavour has moreover 
been made to avoid the danger of dullness by giving to no 
subject treated an amount of attention that might appear 
disproportionate to the scheme of the work as a whole. 



E. HARRISON BARKER. 



Le TRfepoRT, Franxe, 
September, 1908. 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. FRENCH CHARACTER AND ITS INFLUENCE. . 1 

II. FAMILY LIFE ..... 6 

III. STATESMEN AND POLITICIANS . . .26 

*^IV. LITERATURE UNDER THE REPUBLIC . . 51 

V. THE PRESS ...... 86 

■ VI. ARCHITECTURE . * . . . HI 

VII. PAINTERS . . . . . .122 

VIII. SCULPTORS. . . . . . 148 

IX. DRAMATISTS . . . . . .157 

X. PLAYERS ...... 175 

XI. MUSICIANS AND SINGERS . . . .191 

XII. SCIENCE AND INVENTION . . . 197 

XIII. RURAL FRANCE ..... 217 

XIV. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS . . . . 231 
CONCLUSION ...... 263 

vii 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



M. FALLIERES. 

BOULEVARD DES ITALIENS 

PARIS MARKETS IN THE MORNING . 

M. LOUBET 

M. CLEMENCEAU 

CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES 

A BRETON PARDON 

M. ROSTAND . . 

M. ANATOLE FRANCE 



'' GYP " 



M. ROCHEFORT 

CHURCH OF ST. OUEN (ROUEN) 

NORMAN MOULDINGS, CINTHEAUX . 

NOTRE DAME DU PORT (CLERMONT-FERRAND) 

CHATEAU DE BONNETABLE 

CHATEAU DE CHAMBORD 

FABIOLA . . , . . 

M. BONNAT . . . . . 

ix 



Frontispiece 



FACING 
PAGE 



4 

18' 
30 ^ 
36 
40" 
50' 

m 

76 

82 

94 
112 
114 
116 
120' 
126' 
132 
136 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 
PAGE 



M. DETAILLE . . . . . . .142 

LE REVE (DETAILLE) . . . . .144 

M. AUGUSTE RODIN . . . . . .152 

QUAND MEME (mERCIE) ..... 154 

MME. REJANE. ...... 186 

MME. JEANNE GRANIER ..... 188 

M. JULES MASSENET ...... 194 

DR. ROUX ....... 200 

MME. CURIE ....... 206 

BRETONS MAKING WOODEN SHOES IN A FOREST . 228 

A PARIS CARNIVAL . . . . . . 232 

A MUSSEL-GATHERER ..... 244 

GRAND STAND, LONGCHAMPS (GRAND PRIX DAY). . 252 

THE CASINO AT MONTE CARLO . . . 256 



France of the French 



CHAPTER I 

FRENCH CHARACTER AND ITS INFLUENCE 

There is no nati6n whose national character is more strongly 
marked than that of the French. Whatever else may be 
reasonably argued against them, it cannot be said that they 
have not a character distinctively their own. They have 
exercised upon the world an influence too far-reaching and 
deeply penetrating for this to be denied them. In politics, 
in literature, in art, in science, in philosophy, in war, they 
have been great movers and stimulators of mankind. Some 
of the incentives and shocks they have given to the world 
offer the most violent and amazing contrasts ; as, for example, 
the Crusades, which stirred the Christian enthusiasm of the 
Middle Ages, and the Revolution at the close of the eighteenth 
century, which gave the decisive impulse to the modern 
tendency of thought with its positivism, its scientific and 
democratic spirit. There are in this people wonderful 
springs of enthusiasm, of ingenuity, of intuition, of artistic 
fire, of scientific watchfulness, and sudden apprehension of 
meanings that hover over the human mind. They have a 
genius which disturbs the world, whether it stirs admiration, 
or feeds prejudice and foments suspicion. Their history 
has been one of almost incessant turmoil both within and 
outside their frontiers. It has been their destiny to draw 
to themselves and to repel, to inspire warm sympathy and 
also fierce antipathy ; never to be treated with indifference 
by other nations. There is an indefinable something running 
through the psychology of the French people, which gives 

1 

— («398) 



2 France of the French 

to their character the peculiar tone and temper that make it 

what it is. 

And yet the description of the French as " a race " does 

not bear analysis. The Bretons, the Gascons, the Normands 

and the Burgundians are as distinct in origin 

Diversity ^g ^^^ ^^le English and the Irish. No one 
of Origin. ° 

can travel through the country from north 

to south, or from east to west, with observant eyes without 
being struck by the marked differences in the physical type 
of the people of different provinces, and even divisions of 
provinces, especially among the agricultural population. The 
rule with the peasantry is to remain on the same soil 
for many generations, in fact until they are driven from it by 
the violence of an invader or some other public catastrophe. 
The large-boned, often tall, florid and frequently fair-haired 
Norman is quite a different type of man from the dark- 
haired, generally undersized, small-boned and lithe Provengal. 
The one is a Scandinavian, a man presenting really no 
points of physical difference from the Yorkshireman or 
East Anglian; the other is composed of an indefinable 
medley of the races of Southern Europe, including the Greek, 
with a dash of the Arab added. 

What is also worth notice is that people of undoubtedly 
Celtic origin, who have remained Celts of almost pure 
blood to this day, namely, the inhabitants of Western 
Brittany (Armoricans) and those of the highlands of Central- 
Southern France (descendants of the Arverni and Cadurci) 
have but little in common except their greater attachment 
to religious observances and greater respect for ancient 
practices and traditions than the rest of the modern French. 
The change of language may have done much to bring these 
highlanders of Auvergne and the Quercy into line in various 
senses with the inhabitants of the great plains ; for although 
they spoke a Celtic idiom for centuries after Caesar's time, 
their dialect has been a Romance one from the dawn of the 
Middle Ages. The Bretons of Finisterre and the Morbihan 



French Character and its Influence 3 

retain the Celtic tongue with a tenacity only to be compared 
to that of the Welsh in the same matter. Moreover, the 
language of these two peoples, separated as they have been 
for so many ages, is essentially the same. 

What is the leaven or ferment which, working throughout 

the nation's conglomerate mass of originally distinct elements, 

has produced the French spirit, genius, or 

^L ^^ ^ n ?^^ character ? Whence comes it ? Is it a 
legacy of the old Celtic or Gaulish stock, or 
of the Roman, whose blood in the French people is nearly 
as doubtful a quantity as the same blood is in England, but 
whose civilization and drift of mind produced results 
incomparably more lasting and penetrating in Gaul than in 
Britain ? Or does it come from the Normans, or the Franks 
and other Germans ? To such questions there can be no 
answer. All that we know is that there is a something like 
a subtle ferment working throughout the mass that makes 
the strong distinctiveness of the French national character. 

It has long been the boast of the Parisians that it is their 
spirit which leavens the multitude, animates the provinces 
with the yeast of fresh ideas, infuses, as it 
p T .® were, a psychic force throughout the nation, 

making its diverse elements blend and flow 
into the moulds of thought, feeling, taste, beliefs, aspirations, 
political and social, which are fashioned for all on the banks 
of the Seine. It is true that a marvellously penetrating 
influence radiates from this centre. But who are the 
Parisians ? They are a population that is constantly chang- 
ing, undergoing renewal from the inflow of provincials and 
even foreigners, just as the Roman population underwent 
incessant renewal from the drawing in of all the strange 
elements of the Empire. If he goes to Paris in his youth 
and settles there, the Norman, the Breton, the Gascon, the 
Picard, the Burgundian, the Provencal, the Basque, becomes 
in a few years thoroughly Parisianized. The genius of the 
spot hojds him firmly if he has that in his nature which 



4 France of the French 

responds to the influence. If he has it not, he will probably 
drift elsewhere. It is by this process that Parisians are made. 
Old Paris families are not frequently found. If Paris is the 
brain of France, the provinces furnish a considerable part 
of what constitutes the intellectual faculties. Without going 
farther back than the history of the Third Republic, we find 
that of those Frenchmen who have forced their way into 
the front ranks of intellectual workers, whether in connection 
with literature, politics, science or the arts, the proportion 
of Parisian-born is far from overwhelming. Most of the 
others, however, have been very much Parisianized. To 
become so was almost a condition of their success. Paris 
is the furnace into which the ambitious young Frenchman 
usually yearns to cast himself. In any case he will be almost 
certainly drawn into it if he is destined to reach any high 
distinction. This is one of the many aspects of that strong, 
and in some respects regrettable, tendency towards centraliza- 
tion which has done so much to destroy the distinctive life 
of the provinces since the Revolution. 

The readiness with which foreign elements are absorbed 
and assimilated by the French nation often makes one marvel. 

It opens the mind to the conviction that 

Absorption of ^j^g formation of national character is much 

Elements. more the result of environment than of race. 

There are no two European peoples between 
which the lines of distinction — not merely physical, but 
mental and moral — are so strongly marked as the English 
and the French ; and yet a child of English parents, brought 
up in France with French children, becomes so like them in 
all respects, that in manners, character, modes of expressing 
and communicating feelings and affections there is nothing 
to indicate a difference of origin. If the child grows to adult 
age in France, and there are no circumstances to interrupt 
the influence of this environment, he or she may be pretty 
safely reckoned upon to acquire the characteristics commonly 
attributed to people of French blood. 



French Character and its Influence 5 

This astonishing faculty of absorption and assimilation of 
foreign elements, which seems to belong to the French in a 
more marked degree than to other nations of Europe, 
compensates in an appreciable measure for the manifest 
failure of the people to compete with rival races on the score 
of fecundity. There is a constant inflow of aliens from 
without, and a large proportion of these remain in the 
country. 

In the next generation there is usually nothing to denote 
a foreign origin, unless it be in name. Gambetta was a very 
typical Frenchman in spite of his Italian blood. This is 
only one among scores of such illustrations that might be 
given, including not only men belonging to the so-caUed 
" Latin races," a term absurdly misapplied when not confined 
to language — but also Germans, Flemings, Scandinavians, 
Poles and Jews. 

There is matter for reflection, too, in the fact that of those 
who, as Frenchmen, have won distinction and eminence in 
every field of intellectual and artistic activity during the 
last few decades, a very notable proportion cannot be spoken 
of as belonging to the French race. They are examples of 
absorption and assimilation, and as such have proved in the 
most convincing manner the success of the experiment. It 
is a little curious that this success of the alien by origin 
is not resented in France on account of that origin, 
although the French are by no means free from prejudice in 
regard to foreigners. 



CHAPTER II 

FAMILY LIFE 

French family life is but little understood outside of France, 
and there are people from beyond the frontiers and the sea 
who, after living a long while in the country, are still very 
ill-informed on the subject. In lieu of the actual knowledge, 
there are false impressions that have been going the round 
of the world from the time that everybody living can 
remember. These are transmitted from one generation to 
another, and those who have once accepted them as truth 
rarely trouble to enquire further and observe for themselves. 
But it must be allowed that the subject is not an easy one 
to grapple with. The short cut by means of the stage and 
the novel to satisfy curiosity saves trouble, but it may be 
very misleading. The French family is not a corner of life 
open to everybody's inspection and study. The French are 
truly hospitable, and yet very exclusive as regards their 
family life. The Englishman is far more ready than the 
Frenchman to invite a casual acquaintance to his home. In 
France the cafe and the club are the places for casual 
acquaintances ; the home is reserved for the family and very 
intimate friends. Visits may be exchanged year after year, 
on receiving days, without the relations thus maintained 
going any farther than mere politeness. The same politeness 
may even be extended to balls and parties, and yet the family 
life be kept distinct and apart. 

In Paris there is very considerable freedom of intercourse : 
doors are opened readily — too readily ; but Paris is the worst 
place for studying the French at home. In 
Ideas of Home. ^ multitude of cases the sentiment of home 
and the ideal of the family are submerged by mondanites. 
This may have given rise to one of those false but widespread 
impressions in England concerning the French — that they 

6 



Family Life 7 

lack the sentiment of home. Ingenuity has gone so far as 
to connect this supposed want of the feeUng with the absence 
of a word in the French language equivalent to *' home " ! 
Such reasoning is too absurd to be worth refuting, because an 
idea can be strongly and perfectly expressed otherwise than 
by a single word. But there is one word which the French 
use whenever they wish to make the chord of home-sentiment 
vibrate with a deeper and more subtle spirit than would be 
awakened by any term of common currency ; this is foyer 
(hearth), which sums up all that the mind and heart of man 
at their best can express on the subject. 

Paris, let it be repeated, is the worst place for studying 
the French at home. Simple and characteristic French life 

is to be found there above the working and 

Parisians lower middle class, but one must know where 

Provincials, ^o look for it. The population belongs less 

to France than that of any other city in the 
country. The proportion of foreign residents and visitors, 
as compared to the rest of the inhabitants, has increased so 
steadily and enormously since the middle of the nineteenth 
century, that Paris of the present day is certainly the capital 
of which the social life has been the most profoundly 
penetrated and modified by extraneous influences. The 
" provincials " whom the Parisians are so ready to scoff at 
are much more French than themselves as regards customs, 
respect for traditions, habits and views of life, together with 
its duties, obligations, recreations and pleasures. The 
aristocratic class, nominally so much associated with Paris 
life, is becoming less and less French. The old Legitimist 
families, so intimately connected with the Faubourg St. 
Germain under the Second Empire and a good while after- 
wards, who at one time held so aloof even from the 
Bonapartist nobility, have greatly changed their habits and 
views of social intercourse. The two nobilities now inter- 
marry without apparent hindrance on the score of prejudices, 
and mingle without any suspicion of class divisions. But 



8 France of the French 

all this society helps to form what is called " le Tout-Paris,'' 
which is almost as cosmopolitan as French. 

It is among the middle class that manners, customs and 
tendencies have especially to be studied, if we wish to under- 
stand the home life of the nation. It is this 
M'ddl CI class that rules in every sense. Upon its 

ideals and tendencies depends the progress 
or decline of French influence in the world. Those who are 
below it must join it before they can have real influence. 
The bourgeoisie holds the country in its grasp. Practically, 
everybody who gets on at all belongs to it, whether he is the 
workman or the small employe who becomes a trader in a humble 
way, the peasant-proprietor who by increasing the area 
of his land becomes a power to those who admire or envy 
his success, the soldier who rises from the ranks to be an 
officer, the son who is enabled by the self-sacrifice of laborious 
and humble parents to enter the profession of medicine or the 
law ; in fact, everyone who can claim to live by a profession 
or trade, or upon the revenue of capital, however small. 
This great class contains remarkable contrasts and extremes, 
such as leading manufacturers and merchants whose capital 
embarked upon industry and commerce procures for the 
possessor great social and political power, and the small shop- 
keeper who has no higher ambition than by industry and 
economy to be able to retire at about the age of fifty on 
savings just sufficient to satisfy his modest needs. 

All occupations by which people earn money are officially 

termed " professions " in France, and the lines of social 

cleavage which are often so strongly niarked 

Lines of jj^ ^]^g English middle class are less so among 

Cleavage. the French. It frequently happens with 

them that, while some members of the same 

family are officers in the army or navy, or foUow learned 

professions, others are engaged in ordinary commercial 

pursuits ; and it is considered quite natural and reasonable 

that there should be such diversity of aims and tastes. The 



Family Life 9 

number of trades that encounter social prejudices is much 
fewer in France than in England. The merchant who 
carries on his business by negotiation (negociant), and the 
tradesman who has a shop (commerQant), are spoken of equally 
as being engaged in commerce, and their relative social 
position depends upon the state of their fortune and their 
known connections. Although the haute bourgeoisie holds 
aloof from the petite bourgeoisie, the latter need never despair 
of becoming merged with the former if it has the ambition, 
for this end can be directly and surely reached by signal 
success in business, unless there are serious social impediments. 

In order to give any satisfactory picture of the French 
family, it was necessary to clear the way by dealing briefly 
with the general constitution of the great middle class, which 
for the main intent and purpose of social study may be 
regarded as France. 

The positivism which is so marked a tendency of the French 
mind — practical in the ordinary affairs of life beyond all 
comparison with the English mind, although 
^"Ire^Made^^^ in France the common belief is precisely 
the contrary — takes every precaution to 
leave no margin for romantic and sentimental intervention 
in matrimonial arrangements. Of all the business trans- 
actions of life there is nothing so essentially businesslike as the 
ordinary middle-class French marriage. To those who still 
see the relations of the sexes through the idealizing atmo- 
sphere of the north, whose influence easily combines with 
the Christian exaltation of human sentiment and motive 
in respect of these relations, the French marriage as it is 
planned and accepted often appears sordid and mercenary. 

Marriages that are nothing more than business contracts 
are not peculiar to France. They are well known in England, 
and opportunities for admiring or condemning them there 
are by no means rare ; but whereas they are the exception 
with the Anglo-Saxon race, they are the rule with the French, 
leaving aside the class so ill-furnished with this world's goods 



10 France of the French 

that they act upon their natural impulses, not deeming it 
worth while to be calculating. It is so well known that it 
is hardly necessary to lay stress upon the fact that most of 
the marriages which take place in the middle-class families of 
France are brought about by the influence of parents and 
friends, that love before marriage is looked upon very much 
as the dream of a too romantic imagination that should not 
be fostered, the foundation of the family happiness being 
material security. Pallisades are set up as high as they can 
be raised and as enduring as possible, so that the wolf shall 
never get a chance of coming near the door. Again and again 
the whole system of precautions and defences falls to pieces, 
like those structures in certain countries where the main 
timbers are secretly hollowed out by the white ant until the 
shell at length gives way and ail collapses. Nevertheless, 
the general belief in the soundness of the system remains 
firm and steady, and it must be allowed that the degree of 
success which commonly attends it brings much confusion 
to those who, starting from very different ideals, expect from 
such marriages nothing but disaster. 

Is this marriage system the one that is best suited to the 
French character and temperament ? Does it depend on 

some inalienable atavism, or is it the 
Problems consequence of arbitrary and artificial 

conditions, social and political ? A series 
of trying questions, in answering which one is thrown largely 
upon hypothesis. It is very probable that the Roman 
civilization — far more than Latin blood — has much to answer 
for as regards the angle of vision from which the typical 
Frenchman looks at woman : a subject that will be dealt 
with later. For the moment, it is enough to say that certain 
inherited or acquired ideas dispose him easily to accommodate 
his personal preferences to the reasoning of others who point 
out to him all the material advantages of the union which 
they press upon him as a bon parti. That the conditions of 
modern life may have gone far to favour and develop to 



Family Life 11 

excess an inherited tendency to make ideal satisfactions 
surrender to the positive prospect of material well-being 
may be granted without a moment's hesitation ; but we 
must not forget that these very conditions are chiefly, if not 
wholly, the work of men, who reap what they sow. The 
laws of succession and the whole elaborate administrative 
struc|-ure tend to the canalisation of the sexual instinct 
along lines marked out by extreme prudence and calculation. 
The most potent factor in restricting the legitimate increase 
of population has probably been the lack of testamentary 
liberty. The reform of the law under which it was impossible 
to marry in opposition to the wishes of parents, irrespective 
of the age of those chiefly interested, without vexatious and 
almost prohibitive formalities — sommations respedueuses, 
repeated after intervals legally prescribed — belongs to the 
legislation of yesterday. But national custom, when it has 
had time to push its roots deep into the subsoil of society, 
is stronger than law. In theory everybody who has reached 
the age of twenty- one may, under the new law, be free to 
marry as he or she pleases, without vexatious delays and 
formalities if parents or guardians oppose ; but in practice 
things will go on as before, with rare exceptions. Prudence 
as regards marriage seems to be deeply ingrained in the 
French character, and the submissiveness of children to the 
wishes of their parents in this all-important matter is ever 
wonderful to the English observer. 

And here it may be remarked that the sense of filial duty 
is very strong in France, and that the relations subsisting 

between parents and their children in all 
Simplicity periods of life are marked by frankness and 
Affection. simplicity of affection. No false shame is 

allowed to disguise, or diminish, in the 
presence of others the natural movements of family love : 
when a sentiment is known to be worthy, the heart is not 
ashamed of showing it. That affectation of coldness — it is 
only affectation — ^so often noticed between members of an 



12 France of the French 

English family, especially the male members, when they are 
under the eyes of strangers, is unknown among the French. 
They have not that kind of self-consciousness which makes 
the fear of ridicule repress the good and natural movements 
of the human heart whenever there is a reason for yielding 
to an affectionate impulse. At the time of the Boer war, 
French newspaper correspondents who watched the parting 
between English fathers and their sons were much struck 
by the ** stoicism," as they termed it, of the farewell. A 
grasp of the hand, a few parting words, and then the 
separation with, all its heart-harrowing possibilities. The 
French cannot understand the reason for such reserve, and 
attribute it to the coldness of the most phlegmatic of races. 
They themselves would have exchanged embraces under the 
same circumstances, and probably have shed tears. It is 
possible that the Englishman suffers more at such partings 
than the Frenchman, because of the restraint that he puts 
upon his feelings by his dread of appearing weak and his 
exaggerated sensitiveness — which often clothes itself with 
bluntness — when under observation. 

It must be allowed, then, that the sentiment of filial 
submission has something to do with the general readiness 

of the young in France to be influenced in 

T^^ . a very large measure by the experience, 

Market. judgment, and wishes of their parents when 

there is a question of their marriage. In 
this disposition, and in the practice that results from it, there 
are both good and evil. The good is in the diminished risk 
of reckless and improvident marriages. The evil is in the 
too frequent degradation of the ideal of marriage, the placing 
it upon the mercenary level of a business contract. It is 
not going too far to say that the middle-class marriage in 
France is more often than not a mere business contract. 
The man marries to " settle down," to follow seriously some 
profession or trade. If he has any capital, his expectation 
is that his wife will bring him at least as much. Frequently 



Family Life 13 

it happens that he has no capital, and that his views of 

success and his social ambition are regulated to a large extent 

by what he and his family consider him to be worth in the 

matrimonial market. Those who follow such professions 

as the army, the navy, the law and medicine, have the 

recognized right to put a higher price upon themselves than 

others who have adopted calHngs less flattering to feminine 

ambition. Every marriageable man may be said to have 

his price. To put it crudely, he has to be bought. He often 

expects to get more than he is worth, and then he or those 

who act for him meet with rebuffs ; but as there is little 

sentiment in such negotiations, feelings run small risk of 

being wounded by a disappointment. The rejected suitor 

is simply in the position of the trader who makes a dash at 

something going in the open market, and misses it. The 

rule is to feel the ground cautiously before opening fire. 

It is well known that the French middle-class family of 

to-day is rarely overburdened with offspring. When there 

are more than three children, and the 

The Problem parents are not exceptionally favoured in 
of Progeniture. f, r r . ■, 

the way of fortune, such progeniture is 

regarded as a severe trial, if not a positive affliction. Let it 

be supposed that there are three, one boy and two girls. 

The boy is sent to one of the State lycees or colleges, of which 

there is at least one in every important town of France, and 

where an excellent general education is given. The lycee 

ranks before the college, and is to be looked for in the larger 

centres. The boy is well crammed, and if he is studious and 

fairly furnished with brains he may obtain the university 

degree of bachelier-es-lettres at the age of eighteen, or even 

earlier. To get this degree or that of bachelier-es-sciences 

no residence is required in any particular place. The whole 

matter is simplified to the passing of an examination. It 

seems almost needless to add that as a credential of learning 

this diploma is not to be compared in value to the B.A. degree 

of a British University. It is little more than a certificate 



14 France of the French 

which the French youth must obtain before he can with any 
chance of success become a candidate, even for so modest 
an employment under Government as that of clerk in a post 
office. He cannot qualify as a chemist in trade without it. 
The next university degree after that of bachelor is licentiate, 
the examination for which is severe. Armed with his diploma 
of bachelier, the youth may enter himself at any of the 
Faculties either in Paris or in the provinces, or, if his tastes 
lead him to the army, he may obtain admission to one of the 
military schools, of which the principal are the Ecole St. Cyr. 
and the Ecole Polytechnique, the latter being especially 
designed for the training of engineers, military and civil. 
Whether he becomes a lawyer, a doctor, or an officer, his 
equipment for the career that he has chosen represents a 
certain capital which may or may not have imposed a heavy 
strain upon the home finances. In a very large proportion 
of cases it is severely felt, and the young man is then expected 
to make a " good marriage." The social position which he 
is able to offer a wife is taken to be worth a substantial dot. 
This may be ;f 2,000 or much more, according to the social 
standing and ambition of the family. On his marriage he is 
supposed to have received his full share of parental assistance 
during the lifetime of his parents. His sister or sisters, to 
whom no profession has been given, have their marriage 
portions set aside for them, and just as this is much or little, 
their settlement in life is calculated. It is not so much the 
man as his position and prospects, that they are expected to 
marry. 

And wonderfully docile and tractable the French girl 
usually is when a marriage scheme is unfolded to her. It is 

quite possible for her to have a mind, a will 
How the a,nd preferences of her own. She may even 
Marries. ^e restive and recalcitrant ; but how rarely 

this happens ! Influences too subtle to 
analyse, but which belong both to the present and the past, 
to the ideas of her time and generation as well as to tradition, 



Family Life 15 

have gradually and unconsciously trained her adolescent 
mind to look upon marriage in a way that differs profoundly 
from the Anglo-Saxon view of it. The great majority of 
French girls of the well-to-do middle class, and of the higher 
ranks of society, marry without love, as the ordinary English 
mind understands the word in this relation. They marry 
with the hope of love, which is not quite the same thing. 

More often than not the girl finds herself engaged to be 
married to a man whom she has scarcely seen and of whose 
character she can only form an opinion from hearsay. If 
she has no special reason to be strongly prejudiced against 
him : if his manners are agreeable, his appearance not 
objectionable, and she sees before her the prospect of a grati- 
fying social position and a pleasant home, she easily allows 
herself to be persuaded to accept him. She may be married 
to him a few weeks later, and without having been given a 
single opportunity of a really intimate conversation with 
him. When he calls to see her, her mother or some other 
person of judicious and mature years usually shows a 
disturbing anxiety to be present at the interview. He may 
kiss her — on the forehead — in the presence of a qualified 
witness, but if he should propose a walk of only a quarter 
of a mile with her unaccompanied by a safe chaperon, he 
might be stared at as if he had said or done something 
symptomatic of an unsound mind. He therefore runs no 
risk of the sort, but is content with the brief and formal 
interviews, during which his chief concern is to show nimble- 
ness of mind in paying compliments and talking pleasantly 
about nothings. This, however, can scarcely be termed love- 
making, although it is really courtship of its kind. Now, 
although this sketch of French marriage preliminaries is 
capable of some modification and variation, accordingly as 
families may have been subjected by travel or otherwise 
to outside influence, or have developed independence and 
originality, it is strictly traced upon national customs and 
manners. 



16 France of the French 

Of late years rather remarkable changes have been working 
in the ideas of what must be termed the fashionable class, 
in default of a better word. English example has without 
doubt had a great deal to do with it. Manners have moved 
with the spread of lawn tennis and golf wherever society 
gathers. The young of both sexes mingle much more than 
was formerly the case, and more liberty is allowed to engaged 
couples. But the provincial French, whose situation in life, 
and above all whose prudence anchor them, so to speak, to 
local conditions, including ideas of what is correct and 
incorrect, have changed but little during the last twenty or 
thirty years in respect of social rules and prejudices, and the 
provincial French who are not fashionable are the most 
representative part of the nation. 

The Frenchman understands the art of making himself 
agreeable to his wife, and this often goes far to compensate 
for the lack of strong affection at the outset 
H "b^^d ^^ ^ wedded partnership. There is a marked 
general tendency for husband and wife to 
become good friends and comrades, and to keep up this 
relation to the end in spite of occasional spells of domestic 
bad weather. She begins by not expecting over much from 
him, and there is a very fair probability that he wiU stimulate 
her affection by frequent acts of kindness and thoughtfulness. 
In this respect he is a more successful husband than the 
Englishman, who is apt to take too much for granted and to 
neglect the little attentions that are so valued by the feminine 
mind. The Frenchman, for example, will not forget his 
wife's birthday, or her fete day. If he does not make her a 
more substantial present, he is pretty sure to buy some 
flowers for her. The same at the New Year. Although he 
may distribute etrennes at that time in quarters where the 
neglect of the courtesy might be to the advantage of the 
family, he does not forget the New Year gift to his wife, 
although it may be only a bouquet or a bonbonniere. But 
apart from such acts, which belong to custom and are imposed 



Family Life 17 

to some extent by the force of it, he takes the trouble to be 
thought an amiable and companionable husband. He finds 
a pleasure for himself, too, in cultivating the idea that he is 
an exemplary specimen of the married man. It is quite 
the exception when he is not a good and affectionate father. 
He makes sacrifices for his children willingly and cheerfully 
in accordance with the French family tradition, and the 
tenderness of feeling between fathers and their children keeps 
many a home together until the critical years are passed. 

However the matchmaking and pre-matrimonial customs 
of the French may be open to criticism on the part of those 
who have been reared under the influence 
^ ^ ^" of a different direction of ideas, nothing is 
more certain than that the French wife stands out in high 
relief among the women of the world by her domestic 
qualities, her good judgment, her energy of character and 
her capacity of self-denial, and that she constitutes one of 
the most precious of the national forces of France. The 
falsest notions have long been current throughout the world 
on the score of her frivolity. '' The frivolous Frenchwoman " 
is a saying ever ready to rise to the lips in some countries. 
How absurdly misleading it is when used in a general sense, 
all who have studied the French in France, even superficially, 
are well aware. According to the legend, the innate frivolity 
of the Frenchwoman blossoms after marriage when it cannot 
do so before. What is a frivolous woman ? Assuredly one 
who neglects her home and her children for her own pleasure 
and amusement, who makes a selfish or trivial use of the 
present hour without thought of the morrow. No description 
could be less applicable to the typical Frenchwoman. Her 
attachment to her home and solicitude for her children more 
often than not make the one absorbing passion of her life. 
In her the conjugal attachment is as a rule far weaker than 
the maternal one, but this finds a facile explanation in the 
passionless first chapter which is so often that of her married 
state, or in the cruel disillusion which may be hers on discovering 

2— (2398) 



18 France of the French 

that she was not married for herself. Occasionally the 
awakening of a new nature within her, or what she supposes 
to be one, joined to a feeling of vindictiveness towards the 
man whom she blames most for the ennui which oppresses 
her, causes her to revolt against her destiny with consequences 
such as the novelist and dramatist have worked up into every 
imaginable plot and intrigue of romance and comedy. In 
fact, it is the pictures of French life drawn by French writers 
that are mainly responsible for the widespread impression 
concerning the legerete of the French married woman. 

And here it may be remarked that the French have a 
singular disposition to use the resources of art in spreading 
exaggerated notions of their own frivolity and depravity. 
It should also be observed that the Parisian novel or comedy, 
even when it gives true pictures of Paris life, may be only 
distantly applicable to provincial manners, or scarcely at all. 
Then again, the provincial French are often misjudged 
owing to the tendency to regard well-known studies of life 
and character by gifted writers as though they were applicable 
to a whole class, or typical in a far more general sense than 
was intended by the author. Madame Bovary, for example, 
may not be a type of married woman more frequently met 
with in a French country town than in the country towns 
of other lands. This terrible portrait by Flaubert, drawn 
with such a Teniers-like passion for realism, is simply a study 
of human nature that ignores all frontiers. 

The distinguishing quality of the Frenchwoman is her 

strong common sense, and this would be a sufficient reason 

for dismissing as unsound certain impressions 

The French- concernine: her which have long circulated 
woman at Home. ., ° i ., r -■, cu • 

With the world s currency of ideas, bhe is 

not a sentimentalist, but is eminently practical. She is 
a far better manager of her household than the English- 
woman. If there is so much comfort, substantiality and 
security among the French middle class, exclusive of those 
who belong to the higher grades and are reckoned with the 



Family Life 19 

wealthy, the woman can take the larger share of the credit 
for it. All her domestic affairs are regulated by the strictest 
prudence, carefulness and foresight. The domestic instinct 
is so strong in her that the safety of her home is apt to become 
to her an object too absorbing, too exclusive, and to lead 
to the defects and drawbacks which attend all exaggeration. 
It is not the Frenchman so much as the Frenchwoman who 
" fills the stocking " with small savings — a little economised 
here, a little there — and who has thus built up a position of 
some substance for many a family who commenced humbly 
and knew hardship. It is the woman who holds the secret 
of that widely distributed fair measure of prosperity, which 
in the aggregate signifies resources of hoarded wealth such as so 
surprised the world during the years of recuperation which fol- 
lowed the war of 1870. But it is a debatable question to what 
extent the parsimonious habit adds to the happiness of life. 
What may be gained in one direction may be lost in another. 
By dint of saving fuel the fire may go out on the hearth. 

Besides being a good household manager, the Frenchwoman 

is a woman of business of the first order. In bartering and 

selling and in the keeping of accounts she is 

^^wfrnfr'^ not to be equalled by any other. She is 
generally endowed with much constitutional 
strength and power of endurance as well as industry, and 
courage to face difficulties and an overflowing measure of 
shrewdness and tact. Over any bargain, when the matter 
is one she understands, she is fit to break a lance with the 
strongest. In commercial transactions she is no slave to 
abstract principles, but considers herself perfectly justified 
to act upon the rule : " get what you can." In such matters 
she is less conscientious than the man. In a multitude of 
small businesses in France the woman plays the leading part, 
although her husband may have his name over the door. His 
zeal to increase the savings is less keen than hers, and at 
certain hours he feels drawn irresistibly to the cafe, where a 
friend or two in like circumstances as his own may be 



20 France of the French 

expecting him to join them in a game of manille or piquet, 
while she, the wife, sits enthroned at the counter with an eye 
equally vigilant for customer and assistant. How many 
a Frenchman has been saved from financial disaster by his 
businesslike wife ! 

What has been said on the score of the middle-class French- 
woman, especially when her place is in the lower ranks of the 
bourgeoisie, is applicable within the reasonable 

The Working \{^ii^ marked by material conditions to the 
vvoman. 

woman of the working class. Her power of 

patient industry is scarcely less admirable than her sobriety, 

industry, and self-abnegation. Her qualities stand out more 

saliently than those of the bourgeoise, because of her inferior 

opportunities and greater trials. In a moral sense the man 

with whom her lot is cast is rarely her equal Neither habit 

nor instinct has fashioned him to the same ideas of self-denial. 

But for his wife's labour and energy, bravery in the battle 

for bread and spirit of self-sacrifice, his children would often 

starve, or be thrown upon public charity, which in France 

means mendicity unqualified by any official euphemism. 

The drunken woman in sordid rags, who makes her home 

horrible to her husband and grows indifferent to the suffering 

of her children, is not unknown in France, but she is a social 

quantity so seldom observed that it may practically be left 

out of the reckoning. When one considers the wages that 

are earned by the working class in France, and the cost of food 

— much higher in all centres of population than it is in 

England — one marvels at the degree of comfort to be found 

in their homes and the well-looked-after appearance of the 

children. This could never be without the solid qualities 

of the women. On behalf of the men of the same class, 

who give less of themselves to the family than the women 

give, may be argued the temptations of companionship and 

in many cases the arduous and unhealthy labour they have 

to perform. Moreover, the parental and home-preserving 

sentiment is not generally so strong in men as in women. 



Family Life 21 

The French girl of the middle class, especially of the upper 

middle class, still more of the topmost class, is not supposed 

to go out of doors unless she is accompanied 

"^Jj® by a parent or other near relative, or in 

Out of Doors, default of these by a trusted servant. 
Particularly is this the case in Paris and all 
large towns, but the rule may be said to hold good generally 
throughout the country. One of two things is assumed : 
either that she needs to be guarded with lynx-like eyes, or 
that the tongues of malignant gossip have to be guarded 
against at any cost of personal comfort and freedom. A 
footman, unless he were a veteran servitor, would not be 
trusted very far in charge of mademoiselle. But it often 
happens that she is escorted by a very young maid, whose 
garb sufficiently indicates her condition and office, although 
her age renders her function absurd. It is impossible to 
maintain that this vigilance is needless : it is intimately 
related to the lax views of Frenchmen, taken in the mass, 
concerning women who are not apparently protected and 
are not respected on grounds of friendship or personal 
knowledge. It would be ridiculous to imply that such laxity 
is peculiar to Frenchmen ; but however the fact is to be 
explained, a woman in France is not as a rule respected 
because she is one, and has therefore a claim upon all men 
for protection. There is a great difference between polite- 
ness and respect. Too many Frenchwomen are either not 
sufficiently alive to the distinction or are indifferent to it. 

The child is getting more and more scarce among the 
French in easy circumstances, still scarcer among those in 
uneasy circumstances, if we except the class 
who may be said to live from hand to mouth, 
such as the fisher people and the peasants of the poorest and 
most " backward " parts of the country ; for example, 
Lower Brittany and certain tracts of Central and Southern 
France. Those who urge the Government to offer rewards 
by the diminution of taxation, etc., for large families on 



22 France of the French 

patriotic grounds are compelled to recognize that the most 
patriotic in this particular sense are among the poorest and 
most ignorant of the community. Among all those who have 
a proprietary interest in the country, or who aspire to reach 
this social condition, law and custom, as already stated, 
tend to the restriction of the family. The law enforces the 
equal division of property among children, thereby curbing 
the natural ambition to create an indestructible patrimony 
and secure it to future generations ; custom makes it necessary 
to provide marriage portions for daughters. Here are two 
forces that work towards the restriction of the family. There 
are others which are heavily felt in Paris and all centres of 
population by those who are perplexed and care-ridden by 
the problem of living within their income. [And how the 
number of these is ever increasing !] Rent, food, clothing ; 
what a multitude of people who look comfortably off are 
tormented by the solicitudes expressed by these three words ! 
In the case of thousands of underpaid officials, for instance, 
who grow bald and grey while waiting for promotion, society, 
endeavouring to organize on the basis of the barely necessary, 
leaves children quite out of the reckoning. To the reasons 
already given to explain the causes of the declining or 
stationary population of France should be added another : 
the weakening of the Christian sense of duty and its attendant 
sacrifices which are here involved. In those parts of the 
country where the influence of the clergy is strongest — 
Lower Brittany for example — the birth-rate is highest. 

The child, doubtless because it is so often regarded as an 
expensive and hazardous luxury, is commonly given too 
important and prominent a place in the 
Influences French middle-class family. The intelligence 
Childhood. is unduly forced by the excessive attentions 
of indulgent parents, and the child is apt 
to become unpleasantly precocious. Moreover, the limita- 
tion of the family to one or two children, which is rather the 
rule than the exception in towns, tends to frustrate that 



Family Life 23 

design of nature which is to develop character and stimulate 
originality in children by their reciprocal influence and 
action one upon another. 

At a later period, in the case of youths, the same causes 
continue their injurious action upon the race and nation. 

Parents are over anxious to keep their sons 
Leading ^^^^ them, and make their careers smooth 

and safe. The spirit of enterprise and 
adventure which is natural to healthy, well-constituted youth, 
and to which initiative and resourcefulness are so closely allied, 
is thus systematically and rigorously checked, and the young 
Frenchman of the class to which all these remarks especially 
apply generally finds himself thrust into a groove where he 
must remain for life, which more often than not has been 
chosen for him with little regard for taste or special aptitude. 

One of the consequences of this state of things is excessive 
competition for all official and administrative employments, 

the advantages of assured pay and an 
A Discontented ultimate pension being greatly exaggerated 

in the public mind. Administrative offices 
of every description have continued to increase under the 
pressure brought to bear by politicians who expect to be 
propitiated, while the salaries in all the middle and lower 
grades are so inadequate as to create an official class at once 
inconveniently large and discontented, who are persuaded 
that their lives are being wasted, while realizing the hopeless- 
ness of essaying a fresh career, and who often seem to seek 
relief for their bitter humour by giving as small a measure 
of civility and satisfaction to the public as they can. 

These observations on the French family cannot well be 
closed without some allusion to a question which has stirred 

up much controversy in France of late, and 

Effect of Qj^ which opinion is deeply, and, according to 

the Family. ^^^ indications, hopelessly divided ; namely, 

the consequences which the legalization of 
divorce has had upon the family. Nobody questions that 



24 France of the French 

the consequences which have fallen upon the children of 
divorced parents have been sometimes disastrous and 
generally cruel. That they pay a heavy penalty for their 
parents' mistake in getting married, or inability to resist 
the facilities offered by the law since 1884 "to obtain divorce 
and marry again, is in the logic of things. Divorce and 
re-marriage during the last twenty years have followed 
a ratio of progression in respect of the population that has 
scared the sociologist and given matter for serious reflection 
to the legislator. M. Paul Bourget, whose novel Un 
Divorce, and its stage adaptation with the same title, set 
forth his views on the question, holds the divorce system as 
it is now practised in France to be a form of " successive 
and regulated polygamy," and that the country is being 
hurried on towards this dilemma : a return to the traditional 
and indissoluble marriage or a frank acceptance by society 
of the *' free union " as reasonable and justifiable. There 
are others who maintain that the principle upon which the 
law is based, namely, the relief of individuals from a situation 
of grievous hardship to them is radically wrong, because of 
the widespread social consequences resulting from such 
legislation for units. 

It is to be noted that the practice of divorce has pene- 
trated the working class in France to an extent that has its 
democratic significance. '' Judicial assistance " is paid for 
out of the French public pocket on behalf of those who claim 
to be too poor to pay for legal advice and advocacy. Among 
the working class, however, it is usually the much battered 
and otherwise ill-treated wife whose earnings are confiscated 
by a reprobate husband, who seeks relief from the divorce 
court. It should be added, however, that the battered wife 
is much more known to the public authorities in England 
than she is to those of France. 

In the higher regions of French society a divorce always 
causes great scandal, especially when it is followed by re- 
marriage. By a recent amendment of the law a two years' 



Family Life 25 

separation of the parties, judicially recognized, suffices to 
create a reason for divorce, which is at once pronounced 
without further inquiry. In one respect, at all events, the 
divorce system as it is practised in France gains by com- 
parison with that of England : the pleadings are heard in 
camera, and all the miserable details of conjugal dissension 
being withheld from the press, public curiosity is not uselessly 
fed with them. 



CHAPTER III 

STATESMEN AND POLITICIANS 

If it were possible to apply any test to the world's curiosity 
respecting the French, and ascertain the main set of its 
Changes in current in regard to those among them who 
French have risen to prominence in the various fields 
Pohtical Life. ^^ thought and practical work, the result 
would probably not be very flattering to contemporary states- 
men collectively. There are, nevertheless, still a few engaged 
in active politics whose names in the course of years have 
gathered associations in respect of which the public mind 
beyond seas and frontiers cannot be indifferent. The truth 
is, the political life of France is by no means so agitated, or 
so dramatic as it was. It is not merely that party passion has 
calmed down, although it cannot be denied that the pro- 
gressive triumph of the Republican form of government since 
the collapse of the Second Empire in September, 1870, has 
deeply discouraged Royalists and Bonapartists ; the dis- 
appearance from the stage of politics of nearly every great 
actor in those intensely dramatic struggles between rival 
parties and influences, which caused the eyes of the world 
to be fixed so intently upon France during the first fifteen or 
twenty years of her history under the Third Republic, has 
helped to bring about this change. 

With quieter days has come a decline of world-wide interest 

in French politics, as well as a manifest decline of that 

Parliamentary eloquence which was formerly 

^h^% '^^f^^r of such brilliant quality in France, responding 

Talent. ^^ ^^^ fullest measure to the stimulus and 

needs of more turbulent times. The occasion 

produces the man more perhaps in the political than in any 

26 



statesmen and Politicians 27 

other field. The pecuHarly electric atmosphere of France in 
the closing years of the Empire, and the intense and dolorous 
excitement of 1870 and 1871, together with the mighty con- 
flicts of opinion which ushered in a new order of things, served 
to fashion gladiators for the parliamentary arena. They were 
men who, having emerged from a vast national catastrophe, 
seemed in some sort the product of blood and war, carrying 
into the tribune the passion, the ardour, the brilliancy which 
have been so often the legacy of a great public disaster. 

During those early years of the Republic eminent statesmen 
and veteran politicians, such as Thiers, Jules Favre, Louis 

Blanc, Jules Simon, Buffet, de Broglie, and, 

The Past among the younger men belonging to the new 

the Present, epoch, Gambetta, Jules Ferry, Clemenceau, 

Spuller, were all fighting in the breach, so to 
speak, in defence of their political creeds and aims. There 
were also men who, without being in any sense great, either 
in oratory or statesmanship, were nevertheless picturesque 
parliamentary figures, whose turbulent natures had obtained 
for them a wide celebrity. Such a one was Paul de Cassagnac, 
the Bonapartist deputy and journalist. How many now 
remain of those battlers for ideas and flags, whose names were 
rendered so familiar to all Europe by the tumultuous and 
dramatic events in France during the period to which we are 
now looking back, when nobody could feel absolute confidence 
in the solidity of the new political order, when the fierce 
passions ignited by the acts of the Commune and the san- 
guinary repression of the insurrection were still burning, 
and the dread of a new war being forced by Germany upon 
France before the latter was prepared for the struggle, festered 
in every mind ? M. Georges Clemenceau is the only one of 
them who to-day plays a prominent part in the arena of 
politics and public affairs. Most of the men who were 
redoubtable combatants during that historical period are dead. 
Others have so nearly disappeared from the stage that they 
may be said to have passed out of ixiind. With these Henri 



28 France of the French 

Rochefort must be classed. There is no denying that the 
pamphleteer of the Lanterne in the last years of the Empire 
did not a little to prepare the ground for the Revolution of 
September, 1870. Although he has sat among the deputies, 
it is not, however, with legislators, but with journalists that 
his place properly belongs. A politician whose principles 
have veered from those of the Commune to those of the 
plebiscitary Boulangists, while remaining one of the hardest 
of hard hitters who learnt their pen-craft under the Empire, 
he has outlived most of his generation and has outstayed his 
vogue. The old Marquis de Lu9ay, with aggressive tuft of 
hair and eyes like a bird of prey's, is no longer terrible. 
He represents a type of newspaper and pamphlet politician 
that belongs to the past. 

There are many political writers in France to-day capable 
on occasion of showing strength and brilliancy. Where, 
however, among those classed with later arrivals, who really 
belong to our times, are the statesmen the mention of whose 
names causes a little thrill of interest in London, Berlin, 
Vienna, and other European capitals ? Where are the politi- 
cal personalities that thoroughly stir the imagination and 
curiosity of the wider world ? Are there half a dozen such ? 
Are there three ? Are there even two ? These are questions 
that may be easily put, but are with great difficulty answered. 
The wider world may be to blame for the little interest it now 
takes in the men who are to the fore in the politics of the 
planet. 

But speaking of France only it is certain that the conditions 
here are no longer favourable to the making of great states- 
men. However bountiful nature may have 
The Bhght |-,ggn ^q j-j^g politician, still young and energetic. 
Intrigue. ^ the chances are that he will soon be 
stranded upon a lee-shore by intrigue and 
jealousy. The more brilliant his '* parts," as the older 
writers phrased it, the greater the risk to him of becoming a 
speedy failure from lack of time and opportunity. The 



statesmen and Politicians 29 

present form of government has long appeared to be the only 
possible one in France. It offers safeguards which the nation, 
although naturally conservative of old customs and traditions, 
and with a very marked weakness — if it be weakness — for 
pageantry, ceremonial, and all imposing display, has after 
many deceptions cried out for with a voice which, judged by 
the test of nearly forty years, can have no doubtful tone or 
meaning. 

No system, however, for the government of men is a perfect 

machine, and the Republican constitution, as it was put 

jjjg together and set up by the National Assembly 

Parliamentary in 1875, has been proved by the manner of 
System. j^g subsequent working not to be a successful 
incubator of great statesmen, such as by their powerful grasp 
of public affairs and the confidence they inspire appear 
indispensable to the nation that they serve, influence its 
destiny, and become a part of its history. The younger 
politicians of the Republic are rarely given time and encourage- 
ment to develop their faculties in office, or prove the statesman- 
ship of which they may be capable. The facility \^dth which 
a government can be overthrown by a cabal, and the little 
confidence to be placed in any majority owing to the factions 
and ** groups " of which it is composed, and the spirit of 
intrigue that is always rife within it, are conditions little 
favourable to an ascent above the plane of mediocrity. It 
should be noted, however, that there has been a marked 
increase of ministerial stability during the present century. 
In fact, there have only been four ministries since M. Melines 
became Premier in 1896. 

A ministerial crisis causes no pubUc disturbance in France 
as it does in England, because the faU of a Government does 
not entail under the constitutional laws of the Republic an 
appeal to the country. It usually means nothing more than 
a fresh shuffling of cards by the players who form the majority, 
and whom of late years it has been the fashion to describe 
as the " Bloc republicain," this term being the invention of 



30 France of the French 

M. Clemenceau long before he accepted office. During the four 
years for which the Chamber of Deputies is elected there may 
be several different cabinets. In fact there is no Umit placed 
by the constitution. For several years the average number of 
cabinets in each parliament was six. In 1902 this was 
reduced to four. Men who have come rapidly to the front, 
and who have been regarded beyond the French frontiers as 
exceptionally endowed and as statesmen with a brilliant 
career before them, have suddenly returned to obscurity, or 
at least to the cold shade of indifference and neglect, almost 
as soon as they fell from office. It is therefore not surprising 
that some statesmen have shown dread of office, because they 
feared the fate of the moth that has had its wings scorched or 
hopelessly burnt by flying to the light which proved too hot. 
Since Marshal MacMahon's withdrawal from the Elysee in 
1878, under a pressure of public opinion which he was no 
longer able to resist, no President of the 
The President Republic has essayed the dangerous policy of 
the Republic, personal government in France. Each, com- 
mencing with M. Grevy, has endeavoured to 
avoid as much as possible all active intervention in the affairs 
of State, leaving responsible ministers free to pursue their own 
policy uninfluenced by the Presidency, and doing nothing to 
cover them from the consequences of their acts, though it was 
said that M. F61ix Faure was encouraging the Nationalist 
party when they threatened the Parliamentary Republic. 
When the Congress, composed of the Senate and the Chamber 
of Deputies, meets at Versailles to elect a President for seven 
years, its chief concern is to pick out a safe man, one who will 
fill the office with dignity, urbanity, and tact, and at the 
same time be satisfied with the rank of Chief Magistrate of 
the State without ostentatiously exercising the authority 
which one naturally associates with so high a position. Since 
the triumph of republican ideas after the fall of MacMahon, 
family and historical prestige has counted for something in 
the election of only two presidents, namely M. Sadi Carnot, 




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M. LOUBET 



Statesmen and Politicians 31 

and M. Casimir-Perrier. The others were men who could 
claim to be entirely the makers of all the consideration and 
prestige attaching to their names. M. Emile Loubet, the 
late President of the Republic, is the son of a peasant- 
proprietor and horse-dealer of the Lower Rhone Valley, and 
the grandfather of M. Arm ant Fallieres, now President of the 
Republic, combined the occupations of horse-shoeing and 
wine-growing. Gradually the smithy was overshadowed by 
the increasing importance of the vineyard, and the President's 
father, while working as a land surveyor and filling the modest 
post of clerk to the local juge de paix, considerably extended 
the patrimony. 

M. Fallieres is therefore a son of the soil and of the people. 
To describe him as a " self-made man " would not be strictly 
correct, for had it not been for his father's ambition to give 
him a higher social position than his own, and his sagacity 
in providing him with that most useful ladder for scaling all 
heights in France, the profession of the law, the world would 
probably have never heard of President Fallieres. Among the 
French, how many men of note have owed their success in life 
and their rise from very modest, if not humble, surroundings, 
to their parents' industry, simplicity of life, and spirit of self- 
denial ! Those who see the students of law and medicine 
who pour into the Latin Quarter from the provinces, more or 
less determined to win the degree granted by one or other of 
the Faculties of Paris, might be incredulous if they were told 
that the fathers of not a few of them in the distant homestead 
were going about their daily manual work in a blouse and 
sabots. Such contrasts, however, between the fresh generation 
and the immediately preceding one, are common enough in 
France, and nobody is wonderstruck. It is all taken as simply 
by those who look on as by those who act the parts. More- 
over, there is little or no false shame on the score of a humble 
origin. The man who has risen from the peasantry to a high 
place among the hoiirgeoisie by honourable means, so far from 
taking any trouble to conceal his origin or throw a false hght 



32 France of the French 

upon it, very frequently shows a tendency to speak of it as 
something to be proud of. These are national traits of 
character, and the present place seems appropriate for laying 
stress upon them, because they have a bearing upon the 
rather remarkable fact that since the establishment of the 
Republic two of its Presidents, M. Fallieres, M. Emile Loubet, 
have belonged to the peasant or working class. M. Felix 
Faure was the son of a tradesman, but learnt the business of 
a tanner as a workman. It is interesting also to note, as an 
illustration of what has been said about the law as a ladder 
to eminence in France, that three of the Presidents practised 
as advocates, namely, M. Jules Grevy, M. Loubet, and M. 
Fallieres. 

Born in 1841 at Mezin, near Nerac, in that Gascon country 
where Henri IV spent his early days, M. Fallieres owes his 

political success to the fact of his having in 
^' Armand f^^-g ^^(jejit and rather tempestuous youth 

thrown himself into the Republican move- 
ment much to the displeasure of his family, who for a while 
had grave misgivings concerning his future. Others took a 
more favourable view of him, and his political activity made 
him very popular among the Republicans of his district. 
Solid rewards came after the fall of the Empire. While 
practising as an advocate at Nerac he was made mayor and 
in 1876 elected deputy. A man of tact and strong common 
sense rather than an eloquent speaker or doughty fencer in 
debate, he possessed the talent of seizing chances of improving 
his position and making himself necessary to his party without 
appearing dangerously ambitious. In 1883 he was Prime 
Minister for a few weeks, but he was afterwards contented 
with subordinate posts in several ministries until he succeeded 
M. Loubet as President of the Senate in 1899. Had he been 
endowed with more shining, but less pliable work-a-day 
talents, he would have had far less chance of reaching the 
eminence to which he was lifted in 1906 on the retirement of 
M. Loubet from the Elysee. The truth is he was hoisted to 



statesmen and Politicians 33 

the Presidency, not so much for the sake of himself as to keep 
others more ambitious away from it, about whom electric 
storms of suspicion and intrigue had long been raging, but 
which gave forth only an occasional lightning flash and 
thunder-growl. 

The choice of the Congress fell upon M. Fallieres primarily 

because as President of the Senate he was the second person 

in the Republic, as M. Loubet had been at 

Safe Men as ^j^^ ^jj^^ ^^ j^jg election ; and secondly, 

because he was considered safe, which was 
the motive that determined the election of his predecessors 
from the time of MacMahon. Political talents of a high, and 
especially of an enterprising order, would disqualify a man 
for the Presidency of the French Republic. If there is any 
lesson that the Republicans of France have learnt thoroughly 
from their modern history, it is the danger of placing a person 
who is too clever to be trusted or too strong of purpose to be 
easily controlled at the head of the whole administrative 
system. M. Jules Ferry, M. Freycinet, and M. Waldeck- 
Rousseau were all too conspicuously able to have any chance 
of being elected by the Congress when they were candidates 
for the Presidency. 

Little is expected of a President in France beyond tact 
and discretion, a certain bonhomie for the purpose of keeping 

Republicans together, and healing wounds 

W^^t is which the dignity of individuals may have 

President. sustained in Ministerial scuffles, and a sound 

and experienced political judgment in sur- 
mounting a Government crisis. He is also expected to 
possess the personal qualities needed for the official represen- 
tation of France on ceremonial occasions and high social 
functions, such as the reception of ambassadors and all 
immediate relations of courtesy with the Sovereigns or chiefs 
of other States and their families. It might seem that such 
duties would be the most difficult and trying of the Presidential 
position to men whose early days were spent in rustic society, 
3— {2398) 



34 France of the French 

and who did not suppose until late in life that they would ever 
need to be familiar with the etiquette of courts and the 
official ceremonial inseparable from the work of whomsoever 
represents the Republic at the Elysee. The Frenchman, 
however, has a natural gift for adapting himself to all such 
needs with facility. The easy and simple courtesy which is 
natural to him carries him more than half the way through 
the lesson that has to be learnt when he becomes President 
of the Republic. For the rest, the Government provides him 
with a competent instructor — Chef de la Protocole — who puts 
him through his paces whenever this is necessary. It is he 
who introduces ambassadors and marks out the mise-en-scene, 
when democratic simplicity — much more theoretic than real 
— has to give way to semi-regal grandeur and ceremoniousness. 
So far all the Presidents of the Third Republic have acquitted 
themselves well of the ceremonial functions belonging to 
their position. 

The President of the Republic is not expected to make 
money out of his office. M. Grevy had, however, the 
reputation of being very much disposed in this direction. He 
was only human, say those who view him with the largeness 
of mind that comes from introspection. 

M. Georges Clemenceau is by far the most interesting 
political figure in France of to-day. In the first place, he 
may be said to have associated with himself 
M. Clemenceau. a considerable amount of dramatic modern 
history. He is a man who has lived with 
his times so thoroughly that his times live in him. What he 
is apart from the strife of politics and polemical journalism 
few men know. Perhaps no man knows. His character has 
always been enigmatic. Even when he has appeared the 
most open, there has been the impression that the true man 
was shut up and the door double-locked. The real measure 
of his heart, his human sympathies, his character in a word, 
are likely to remain the secrets of the sphinx, except perhaps 
to a very few intimate friends. 



statesmen and Politicians 35 

Mockery, mordant humour, and the spirit of opposition 
have always appeared to be the foundation of his character. 
To this must be added a strong intellectual grasp of facts and 
things opportune. He can hardly be termed a great orator, 
because he has not enthusiasm, the power of raising himself 
into regions of the ideal, nor the ardour of nature that is 
capable of self-deception ; but he is a parliamentary wrestler 
who can throw a dozen adversaries in quick succession. He 
has the biting sarcasm, the trenchant repartee always ready 
the moment it is wanted. The strategic movements by which 
he overthrew so many ministries made him many enemies 
among those less briUiantly gifted. This for a long series of 
years would have rendered the task of leading the Republica.n 
majority an extremely difficult one had he been prevailed 
upon to accept it. 

Born in 1841, M. Georges Clemenceau studied medicine in 

his youth and practised it for a while at Montmartre, but 

militant politics and journalism had more 

At the Time charm for him than the healing art. His 
Commune, hatred of the Imperial regime was intense, 
and the Revolution that immediately 
followed the capitulation of Sedan gave him opportunities 
which he made the most of. During the siege he was mayor 
of the i8th arrondissement. The Commune was declared on 
the i8th March, 187 1, and he remained in office until the 27th, 
when he sagaciously resigned. While in office, he used his 
influence upon the Central Committee to prevent those 
extreme measures which resulted in the most frightful civil 
war of modern times, in which 25,000 French people are said 
to have perished, the retaliation of the Versailles troops 
having been even more sanguinary than the acts of the 
Communards. Summary executions in a multitude of 
instances were carried out upon the most trivial evidence of 
guilt. M. Clemenceau was not compromised by the Federal 
outburst of 1871, but was now launched definitely upon the 
poUtical career, and in the first Chamber elected under the 



36 France of the French 

Constitution of 1875 he began to pit his Radicalism against 

Gambetta's Opportunism. For a while it was doubtful which 

of these two bitter adversaries would prevail in the long duel 

that they fought, and which was ended by Gambetta's death 

in 1882. 

M. Clemenceau's chance of showing his strength at the 

head of a Government was so long delayed, mainly by his 

opposition to the policy of the Opportunists, 

The Policy commencinsf with Gambetta and ardently 
of Colonial . . , , t 1 t- h 1 ^^ 

Expansion. contmued by Jules Ferry, of extendmg 

French possessions and influence in other 
continents as some compensation, at all events to the national 
pride, for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. M. Clemenceau very 
nearly succeeded in obtaining the abandonment of the Tonquin 
campaign by France, and his influence counted for much in 
the rupture of the Anglo-French Condominium in Egypt. 
For this latter work very many of his countrymen long bore 
him fierce resentment, for every year brought fresh con- 
firmation of the magnitude of the blunder then made by 
France, although the arrangement for dividing the Egyptian 
house contained in it fatal seeds of discord. 

M. Charles Louis de Freycinet has played too prominent a 
part in the history of the Republic for him not to be mentioned 

among the foremost of living statesmen in 
M. de Freycinet. France, although age has now forced him to 

settle down to the life of a senator who is 
content to watch the political game at a little distance from 
the table. Born in 1828, he is a cultured and very refined 
Repubhcan of the old school. A man of wide technical 
acquirements (he commenced Ufe as a Government engineer 
under the Empire), he had much to do with the reorganization 
of the army on the German system, and also initiated a Vcist 
scheme of public works, such as roads, railways, and canals, 
materially affecting the economic conditions of France. 
Extremely supple and tactful, very adroit, too, in debate 
without being eloquent, he has several times been President 




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M. CLEMENCEAU 



Statesmen and Politicians 37 

of the Council. It was while he was at the head of affairs 
that the French squadron under Admiral Conrad steamed 
away from Alexandria. It was he, too, who assumed the 
responsibility of expelling from French soil all Pretenders to 
the throne of France and their immediate heirs after the 
incidents associated with the Marriage of the Princess Amelie 
d'Orleans, daughter of the Comte de Paris, to the Duke of 
Braganza, afterwards King of Portugal, of tragic destiny. 
He has not held a portfolio since 1899, but he has worn the 
uniform of an Academician since 1890, although what his 
literary claims were upon the Academy's recognition it is not 
easy to discern. But the same difficulty applies to others 
also who have swung themselves from the trapeze of politics 
into a fauteuil at the Palais-Mazarin. 

There is no ministerial portfolio so likely to burn the hands 
of the holder in France as that of Foreign Affairs. He who 
holds it must be one of the most skilful of 
. e casse. navigators amidst sunken rocks and shifting 
sands. Added to the difficulties and embarrassments which 
he expects to meet from those beyond the frontiers whose 
business is to work against his diplomacy, he has to be 
constantly prepared for the surprises and machinations of 
adversaries at home who, merely to score some petty gain 
in the scramble of parties and ** groups," will not hesitate to 
drag, if they can, the minister's best secret into the world's 
blazing noonday. If there are certain things which in the 
interest of his country he cannot make public without giving 
away the game, he may have to choose between resignation 
and a less dignified manner of retiring. M. Delcasse was the 
only Minister of Foreign Affairs in France since the war of 
1870 who dared to lay out in his own mind a vigorous foreign 
pohcy, and with the help of events to apply it with method 
and esprit de suite ; but while it served to strengthen the 
international position of France enormously, it brought a 
crisis upon himself. He was bom in 1852, and therefore as 
a statesman he belongs exclusively to the Republic. He was 



38 France of the French 

Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1898 to 1905, when he 
resigned in consequence of the wave of panic that broke over 
the Chamber of Deputies owing to the attitude of Germany 
in his regard, and for which a pretext was found in Morocco. 
Without reahsing, apparently, the principle of national 
dignity involved, the Chamber yielded under the influence of 
M. Rouvier, then President of the Council, to foreign pressure 
on ground where such pressure is not usually tolerated. The 
importance of the incident now is in the light which 
it throws upon the excitability of French character, even 
in the domain of international politics, where calm and 
all that is opposed to impulsiveness are of such rigorous 
necessity. 

The influence of M. Emile Combes upon the course of 
legislation during the last few years has been such that 

history will be compelled to give him a 
ComS prominent place among RepubUcan statesmen 

of the present day. As far as one can read 
the signs of the times, however, the part he played in the 
political firmament was only transitory. Born in 1835, he 
was little known to the public until 1902, although he had 
long been a senator, and was Minister of Public Instruction 
in 1885. In 1902 he formed a Cabinet whose chief mission 
was to continue the work of " secularising " France, which 
was pursued for years with tenacity and subtlety by Waldeck- 
Rousseau (1846-1904), who himself continued the anti- 
clerical policy of Jules Ferry (1832-1893), especially in breaking 
up the rehgious communities in France, either by way of 
expulsion on the ground of their being unauthorized, or by 
the imposition of taxation designed to cripple them financially. 
There was a certain suppleness, however, in M. Waldeck- 
Rousseau's methods which was foreign to the character of 
his successor. M. Combes applied M. Waldeck- Rousseau's 
measure in regard to " associations " — ^which reaUy meant 
religious communities — with a rigour, not to say fanaticism, 
that drew protests even from the author of the law ; but 



Statesmen and Politicians 39 

the hand of death was aheady upon M. Waldeck-Rousseau, 
and he had to withdraw from active pohtics. M. Combes 
received an education in view of the priesthood. He even 
took minor orders and was a professor in a seminary, but 
he forsook the ecclesiastical career and became a country 
doctor. 

This is not the place for more than a superficial notice of 
the long and embittered conflict between the ecclesiastical 
and the secular spirit in France — the term 
Anti-Clericalism, q^^^^^i and State does not express the true 
significance of the struggle. The subject is inseparable, 
however, from the attempt to make the important part 
played by M. Combes in recent politics intelligible. On him 
lies the main responsibility of the diplomatic rupture 
between the Republic and the Vatican, the abrogation of the 
Concordat, with its consequences : — the freedom of the French 
clergy from the control of the State, the necessity imposed 
upon the people of directly interesting themselves in the 
cause of religion, or, as an alternative, accepting the extinction 
of observances and practices interwoven by the work of ages 
with their traditions of family life and social decorum. It is 
impossible to forecast the eventual outcome of this trenchant 
policy, the whole weight of which M. Combes laid upon his 
shoulders, but it is most certain that the immediate results 
have not been such as were anticipated by him and others. 
The dispersion of the religious orders and the secularisation 
of their establishments, a work upon which M. Combes 
expended an extraordinary reserve of energy for a man of 
his age, have, apart from any religious view of the question, 
proved mainly destructive by driving away capital and in 
some cases industry — the expulsion of the Carthusians from 
the Grande Chartreuse for example — to the advantage of 
other countries. In an intellectual and historical sense it 
has also been destructive, by breaking picturesque and 
sentimental links connecting France of the present day with 
France of the Middle Ages — a connection of the richest 



40 France of the French 

interest to those whose sympathy takes in the past as well 
as the present of mankind, and who, like Terence, are not 
indifferent to anything human. 

Of the facility with which politicians rise to positions of 
great eminence and influence, the rapidity with which they 

emerge from comparative obscurity into the 
^Briand."^^ full blaze of celebrity in France of to-day, 

M. Aristide Briand is a striking example. 
Born in 1862, he was almost unknown to the public at the 
commencement of the present century. A very astute 
lawyer, subtle-minded, but also supple, a Freethinker with a 
profound contempt for all religion, having apparently but one 
ideal : the complete and definitive separation of the Govern- 
ment and Republican institutions from entanglements of 
creed and traditions of a superstitious origin — the adjective 
is used here to indicate the exact point of view taken by 
M. Briand and others who share his opinions — the posture 
of philosophic moderation is, nevertheless, a favourite one 
with him, and in no one has the conviction sunk deeper 
that political victories are won more often by suppleness, 
real or feigned, than by tactics which allow no room for 
compromise. 

It was the struggle with the Church that brought M. Briand 
into public notice. It was he who, as a private member of 

the Chamber of Deputies, framed what has 

The Separation come to be well known as the Separation Law, 
of Church 1 • 1 r, i ■, - ■, • -, 

and State. wnicn, alter breakmg the connection between 

Church and State based upon the Concordat, 

contained a scheme for the continuation of the religious ofiices 

in the parish churches by the Catholic clergy, subject to the 

control in temporal matters of local lay associations elected 

for the purpose. The Pope refused to accept this law, with 

the almost unanimous concurrence of the French clergy. 

One result has been the confiscation of aU Church property 

by the State, including bishops' residences, presbyteries, 

seminaries for ecclesiastical students raised with private funds, 



Statesmen and Politicians 41 

and all endowments for pious purposes. The capital thus 
realized, after being put in and taken out of the melting-pot 
of legal procedure — its tendency to remain in the melting-pot 
drew protests from M. Combes himself, when he was no longer 
in office — is to be applied to local secular purposes, charitable, 
instructive, and useful. Although threatened with police 
proceedings, the clergy continued to use the churches as they 
did before the separation, and the Government, fearing a 
reaction of public feeling if these edifices were turned from 
the object for which they were built, passively accepted a 
situation opposed to the spirit and intention of the measure, 
which rendered the rupture inevitable, because according to 
the view taken by heo X and the French episcopacy, it 
constituted an invasion of the spiritual domain by the secular 
authority. This toleration, however, rests upon nothing 
more solid than expediency, and the whole agitation may be 
revived by the next legislature. 

M. Jean Jaures was not trained like M. Briand to an acute 
understanding of all the meshes of the law. Born in 1859, 

the career of a professor under the University 
M. Jean Jaures. was his first ambition. Having duly qualified 

at the Ecole Normale Superieure, he became 
a professor of philosophy in a State lycee. With a 
real gift of eloquence such as moves masses of men, and 
a southern exuberance of nature such as one might 
expect from a native of Castres in the Albigeois, he was drawn 
more and more towards militant Socialism, until at length 
politics absorbed him. His appearance in the Chamber of 
Deputies dates from 1885. He has more of that passionate 
and magnetic eloquence connected with the tribune, which 
was the strength of Gambetta, than any other politician 
of the day in France, but his CoUectivist Socialism is either 
an abomination or an absurdity to the bourgeoisie and the 
peasant landowners, whose hope is to increase what they 
possess. In a country where property is so widely distributed 
as it is in France, and in which the instinct of acquisition 



42 France of the French 

by work and economy is still so strong, the conditions are 
unfavourable to Socialism, although signs are not wanting of 
a decline of courage in industry and thrift, which last, when 
not corrupted by avarice, is the courage of self-denial. M. 
Clemenceau, who is an individualist Radical, has no more 
virulent adversary in the Chamber of Deputies than the 
Socialist leader, M. Jaures. M. Jaures* burly figure and his 
weight of fist — which he uses rather unmercifully on inanimate 
objects when the oratorical fury is strong upon him — fit 
better with the notion of a tribune of the people than 
with that of a professor of philosophy sent forth with all 
the training in the " humanities " and other intellectual 
equipment of the Ecole Normale. 

To mark out a few of the more salient figures from among 

the politicians of contemporary France is all that can be 

attempted here. Considerations of com- 

Obl^'^* parative merit, or value in statesmanship 

based upon past services, have to be left very 

much on one side. Figures well to the fore only a few years 

ago are already caught in the mist of oblivion, from which it 

does not seem likely that they will emerge. It sometimes 

happens, however, that this impression is quite effaced by an 

unexpected turn of events. Thus M. Clemenceau, whose 

political career was supposed to have finished, rose to the 

surface in 1906 with a buoyancy even less surprising than 

the time that he has since been able to keep at the head of 

affairs. He took the place of a veteran Republican of his 

own generation, M. Rouvier. 

M. Rouvier (1842) was brought forward as a sort of lifeboat 

of Foreign Affairs during the storm blown up by Germany in 

1905. Earlier in the same year he succeeded 

M. Rouvier. ^ Combes as Prime Minister. M. Rouvier's 
strength, however, lies in finance, and his ministerial services 
in this direction have been of real value to the Republic. He 
has been a senator since 1903. 

M. A. Ribot, also born in 1842, has played a prominent part 



statesmen and Politicians 43 

on the political stage of the Republic, but is now a fading 
figure. This is explained by the fact that he represents 
a prudent and moderate Republicanism 
* ^ ° * that has long ceased to keep time with the 
pendulum which is moved by popular pressure. A gifted 
orator, with a courageous honesty of character, inspiring even 
adversaries with respect, he was often able to throw into the 
same scale the votes of the moderate deputies both of the 
Right and the Left. He defended the Republic vigorously 
against the dishonest movement of Boulangism. He has 
been three times Prime Minister, and he became a member 
of the Academy in 1906. 

M. Henri Brisson (1835) belongs to the generation of 
Republicans whose early youth was passed under the Mon- 
archy and the first period of manhood under 
M. Henri ^^le Empire. The Avenir National, which 
he founded in 1869, was not intended to 
revive the failing lustre of the Napoleonic star. Although 
he has had much ministerial experience, including that of 
Premier, the office that has had the greatest attraction for 
him is that of President of the Chamber of Deputies — a very 
comfortable one, with a solid stipend attached to it, together 
with one of the most splendid of official residences, the Palais 
Bourbon. Here Gambetta, during his presidency of the 
Chamber (1879-81), gave a memorable fete, the magnitude 
and prodigality of which have not been emulated by any 
successor. M. Brisson is regarded as one of the most austere 
of Republicans. He took a prominent part in favouring the 
revision of the Dreyfus case. 

M. Paul Deschanel must be numbered with politicians who 

have grown up under the Republic. He was born in 1856. 

Highly educated and accomplished, including 

Deschanel ^^^ ^^^ ^^ presenting the best possible 

appearance with what nature has bestowed 

upon him, he can be very effective in debate, but is not 

really popular. He has been President of the Chamber of 



44 France of the French 

Deputies. He belongs to the reserve of statesmen that the 
Repubhc holds among those whose talents have thrust them 
into notice since 1870, but he may never be called upon to 
take the helm of State. His father, the late Emile 
Deschanel, a professor of the University, was so ardent a 
Republican that he was a proscript of the Empire, and 
lived long in exile. M. Paul Deschanel is a member of the 
Academy. 

Few of those who only think of M. Meline as the foremost 
of Protectionists under the Republic, and as a man chiefly 

made up of figures and cold reasons, with the 
MeHne ^^^® °^ ^^ austere magistrate of the Empire 

got adrift upon democratic waters, not at all 
to his taste, would be ready to believe that he was a member 
of the Commune in 1871. He, however, very quickly leapt 
out of that fire. He was deceived by early appearances and 
led into danger by patriotic enthusiasm, as were others also 
in whose heart there was a great revolt when the news came 
of the terms of peace with Germany. This idealist of 1871 
afterwards discovered in himself a violent taste for agriculture 
and political economy. From the time he entered the Ferry 
Cabinet in 1883 as Minister of Agriculture, he became the 
protector of the peasant-proprietor from the competition of 
foreign produce. He rendered it possible for the country to 
continue to grow, even under the system of limited means 
and appliances inseparable from small holdings, the bulk of 
the wheat needed for home consumption. His protectionist 
policy has been continued, but his lack of sympathy with 
Radicalism has since 1898, when as Prime Minister he was 
strongly opposed to the reopening of the Dreyfus case, 
excluded him from the stage of active politics. He consoles 
himself by criticising the late comers in the Republique 
Frangaise, which since 1899 has been the organ of himself 
and his dwindling partisans. The institution of the Order 
of Agricultural Merit — disrespectfully termed the '* Order 
of the Leek " — is due to M. Meline. It added a fresh bit of 



statesmen and Politicians 45 

coloured ribbon for the decoration of French button-holes. 
M. Meline was born in 1838, and has long been a member of 
the Senate. 

It is not easy to decide whether M. Edouard Lockroy 

should be classed with statesmen or journalists. The work 

of his life has been chiefly done with the pen, 

^L ^kro ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ figured very prominently in 
the parliamentary arena under the Republic. 
His political views may perhaps be best described as of a 
genial and therefore old-fashioned Radicalism. The ferocity 
of the new Radicalism does not harmonize with his intellectual 
training and his long experience (he was born in 1840). Of 
an impulsive and adventurous nature, he took part in the 
Garibaldian expedition of i860. He has held several port- 
folios under the Republic, the last and most important being 
that of the Marine, which he had to yield to M. Camille 
Pelletan in 1899. Naval questions have absorbed much 
of his mental activity of late years, and for a landsman 
he has shown a remarkable grasp of them. M. Lockroy has 
not yet been swept up with the debris of political struggles 
for office and influence. He may come out of his corner 
again. 

M. Camille Pelletan is another ex-Minister who is proud to 

remember that after an experience mainly journalistic and 

Parisian he was placed at the head of the 

^ nT^^^^^ French fleet. Although only separated by 

a shade or so in politics from M. Lockroy, he 

found much satisfaction in undoing as far as he reasonably 

could his predecessor's work, ^^ile the retired admirals 

sitting in council over the affairs of the navy in the Rue 

Roy ale either lashed themselves to indignation or exploded 

with laughter as they were being worried by the theories 

of this pair of rival land-lubbers. It has been said of 

M. Pelletan that he did not know what the sea was like 

until he was obliged to pay it an official visit after his 

acceptance of the Naval portfolio ; but as he had represented 



46 France of the French 

in the Chamber a Mediterranean department, there was 
obvious exaggeration in this. M. Pelletan was born in 1846, 
and in 1881 he entered the Chamber of Deputies by the door 
of journaUsm. 

Although he belongs strictly speaking to the army, General 
Picquart by the dramatic incidents of the Dreyfus case 

became a politician. There is no reason to 
I^cquart suppose that he had any ambition at that 

time to enter the political field. On the 
contrary, his action in accusing Esterhazy and Henry, and 
declaring documents read in the Chamber of Deputies by the 
late M. Cavaignac, then Minister of War, to be forgeries, 
exposed him to the gravest dangers, with but little hope of 
eventual justice, the state of the public mind in 1898 being 
considered. He was tried by court-martial and struck off 
the active list of the army. After some years passed in 
obscurity and official disgrace, the triumph of the Revisionists, 
Scheurer-Kestner and others, hastened by the unexpected 
appearance in the arena of Emile Zola, as the accuser of 
General Mercier and subordinate officers, whose names need 
not be again mentioned, of conspiracy against Dreyfus, made 
it a matter of the clearest justice to reward the man who had 
paid so dearly for his moral courage, appearing as he did 
almost in the light of a traitor to the army which had already 
opened brilliant prospects to him, rather than allow a Jewish 
captain, generally hated, for whom he had no personal 
friendship, to perish slowly on a rock as the scapegoat of 
others. If the world had npt grown so weary of the Dreyfus 
case and all its ramificanons, it would have been more 
impressed than it was by the dramatic circumstances under 
which the disgraced lieutenant-colonel reappeared in the 
bright light of publicity as General Picquart, Minister of 
War. He has made no vindictive abuse of his triumph. In 
his official capacity he has shown sufficient strength without 
parade. General Picquart was born in 1854, ^^^ saw active 
service in Tonquin and Annam. 



Statesmen and Politicians 47 

There are few now either in the Chamber of Deputies, or 

in the Senate, who, as the representatives of the Monarchical 

cause can bring a strong personal influence 

Monarchist ^q j^gg^j- upon the House. The eloquent 

and Conservative , . ^ , . , rr -, r 

Leaders. champions who remain have suffered from 

the ravages of time and the weariness of an 
ineffectual struggle. The form of government has long been 
left out of discussion by the wise, but the members of the 
Right have always defended the interests of the Church, have 
upheld the religious orders in their long and always losing 
struggle with Republican politicians, and have resisted lay 
control of the primary schools with the utmost energy : all 
this to very little purpose. The Comte Albert de Mun (1841), 
a cavalry officer in 1870, has since 1876, when he was elected 
a deputy, been fighting in the breach for the Catholic cause, 
but not for royalty since 1892, when Leo XIII urged French 
Catholics to refrain from placing themselves in opposition to 
the Republic. Endowed with eloquence of a high order, he 
resisted with remarkable ability, but with no success, the 
earlier measures which led the way to the complete seculariz- 
ation of the system of public instruction. Ill-health has with- 
held him from active politics of late years. He was one of 
the few of his party whose sagacity, or honesty, kept them 
aloof from the Boulangist movement. He has been much 
spoken of as a promoter of ** Catholic socialism," but the 
term is misleading. His strenuous efforts in the organization 
of Catholic-Republican clubs for working men have been 
rewarded with but scant success. It is needless to say that 
his exertions in this direction received no official encourage- 
ment. M. de Mun is a member of the Academy. 

One of the most prominent figures of the Right in the 
Chamber of Deputies since 1889 is M. Denys Cochin, who has 
fought valiantly in many a fierce parliamentary battle for 
the Conservative and religious principles which he holds to 
be of paramount importance. 

The " groups " into which the Republican majority in the 



48 France of the French 

Chamber of Deputies and the Senate have been divided for 

years past are often a severe puzzle to those who have not 

grappled with the subject. Most people who. 

Parliamentary ^^^ ^^^ keenly interested in it leave it alone, 
Groups. -^ 

or persuade themselves that they have rightly 

guessed all that is worth knowing about it. Such guessing, 
however, is a bewildering by-way and does not lead to clear 
ideas. A " group " is more often than not a little centre of 
self-seeking, of which those who compose it say to one another, 
** You push me along, and I will push you." Groups unite 
constantly with a common object, but this does not prove 
that they love one another. They may even strive to poison 
one another's coffee, although they are fractions of the " Bloc 
Republicain," united by a general political affection. 

These groups have grown and blossomed gradually under 
the Republic. In the National Assembly elected after the 
War, the governing majority was composed of the Right 
Centre (nominally Republican, but doubtful), the Right 
(Legitimists and Bonapartists, susceptible of influences), 
and the Extreme Right (uncompromising Royalists). The 
minority, or Opposition, was composed of the Left-Centre 
(moderate, but firm Republicans), of the Left (Republicans, 
less moderate and accommodating), and the Extreme Left 
(Radical Republicans). But only two policies really divided 
Parliament at that time : the permanent establishment of 
the Republic, which was the work of all the Gauches united, 
and the restoration of the monarchy, which was the work of 
the Droites. The Orleanists sat in the middle of the see- 
saw without any fixed principles. Of the Empire then there 
could hardly be any question. The immense disaster to the 
Napoleonic star at Sedan was too fresh in the public mind. 
In the new Chamber of Deputies elected in 1876, Gambetta 
was the paramount influence, and his *' opportunism " became 
the tent within which all Republicans willing to adjust their 
ideals and hobbies to the necessities of the times, took shelter. 
It was he who formed the *' Union Republicaine/' made up 



Statesmen and Politicians 49 

from different Republican groups, and to some extent from 
the ranks of the Orleanists, who were not of one mind to play 
into the hands of the Legitimists and help the Comte de 
Chambord to the throne, as Henri V. It was this union of 
the Gauches, numbering 363 deputies, which defeated the 
Royalist machination in 1877, known in history as the " i6th 
May." After the fall of Marshal MacMahon, M. Clemenceau 
formed a Radical group which included the members of the 
Extreme Left, and was in opposition to Gambetta and his 
** Union Republicaine." The Right Centre disappeared and 
became absorbed by the Right. For some years the struggle 
in the Chamber lay chiefly between Opportunism and 
Radicalism, the respective champions being Gambetta and 
Clemenceau. The tactics of the Right were to join issue on 
occasion with the Radicals, and in this way Governments 
were brought to grief in rapid succession. In 1885 the 
Radicals separated from the Extreme Left and formed a 
group apart, which they still maintain. The Extreme Left 
has come to be composed of Socialists of different shades, who 
more or less acknowledge for general purposes the leadership 
of M. Jaures. The common danger raised by Boulangism 
brought about a " concentration " of Republican groups. 
After the death of Boulanger, the debris of his party in the 
Chamber kept the name of " Nationalists," and there are 
still a few representatives of this " group." In 1893 a new 
group, the ''Union Liberale," or "Moderate Left," was formed 
under M. Ribot, and at the same time the Progressists, 
another fraction of the Republican majority, began to be 
spoken of. On the Right a fresh group came into existence, 
which professed to follow the advice of Leo XIII, and to 
" enter the edifice," i.e., the Republican Party, and to defend 
the cause of religion from that position. They were called 
the " Rallies," and their chief was M. J. Piou. The experiment 
had no perceptible influence on the course of events. To-day 
there are groups even among the Socialists. The endeavour 
of every Cabinet of late years has been to work with the 
4— {2398) 



50 France of the French 

" Bloc Republicain," or a majority made up from all Re- 
publican groups, with a specific programme of measures 
and general policy as a basis of agreement. 

Prior to the General Election of the Chamber of Deputies 

in 1906, senators and deputies had a stipend — euphemistically 

termed an '* indemnity " — equivalent to fyS^ 

The Stipend a year. Subsequently they voted for them- 

of Legislators, selves an increase of pay, which brings up 

their indemnity to the much more satisfactory 

(to them) figure of ;f6oo a year. The effect of this measure 

will be to make the political career more than ever attractive 

to men who discover that the professions for which they have 

been trained do not offer sufficient scope for their abilities. 



CHAPTER IV 

LITERATURE UNDER THE REPUBLIC 

Nothing more is attempted in this section than to touch 
hghtly upon what is most striking and characteristic in 
French Hterature during the closing decades of the nineteenth 
century, and so much of the new century as belongs to the 
past. This will be done in the form of rapid notes on those 
authors who have figured, or who still figure, prominently 
in the literary life of the period indicated. 

The ghastly convulsions of 1870 and 1871 very nearly 
coincided with the commencement of a new epoch in French 
literature. It has been stated, and probably with some 
truth, that the disasters and horrors of that time influenced 
the formation of character, the tone and direction of mind in 
the young whose physical development was incomplete, and 
even in the child unborn. One or two generations with 
more or less morbid tendencies were the consequence, if 
this theory is to be accepted. But the morbid tendency of 
so much that is modern in French literature left its mark 
upon the nineteenth century earlier than 1870. It was the 
" maladie du siecle " that used to be talked about long before 
the century began to be conscious that it was growing old. 
It was a melancholy pessimism, often mawkishly sentimental 
as well as affectedly cynical, and to a large extent was a 
literary pose. It reached a climax of perversity of the 
imagination in Fleurs du Mai, by Charles Baudelaire 
(1821-1867). There was nothing of the Voltairean spirit of 
buoyant scepticism in it, and still further was it removed 
from the scepticism of Montaigne, which was marked by 
the graces and robust health of the Renaissance. This 

51 



52 France of the French 

literary current had changed considerably in character before 
the term ''Fin de siecle^^ came into use to express something 
vaguely deliquescent in faith, morals, and everything 
respectable, but which was not melancholy. The old century 
before dying had quite thrown aside the torn-and-tattered-soul 
attitude of Byron, de Musset, Lamennais, Baudelaire, and 
others whose names can be easily recalled. 

When the French mind began to settle down after the war 

with Germany and to take up again the various threads 

of intellectual and artistic interest, the living 

Influence of influences then uppermost in literature were 
Positivism. those of Realism and Positivism. The craze 
for scientific methods applied to work of 
the imagination, as well as to the observation of natural 
phenomena, stirred the intellectual part of society to its 
depths throughout the whole range of art. The luminous 
mind of Pasteur, the most patient and unassuming searcher 
for clues that were desperately wanted in the domain of 
useful and philanthropic science, of him who became more 
and more impressed by the limitations of man and more 
awstruck in the presence of the Infinite the deeper he pene- 
trated the labyrinths of the Infinitely Small, quietly protested 
against this folly. But Pasteur's influence at that time 
upon the philosophic drift of ideas was only like a star 
shining through a rift in the cloud-rack. Those who 
knew little, or nothing, of science were among the most 
fervent believers in the sufficiency of its message to 
mankind, the most dogmatic preachers concerning its 
potentialities. 

In philosophy the influence of Auguste Comte was still 
very strong, and it ruled in the literature of higher criticism. 
Like Sainte-Beuve (1804- 1869) of the genera- 
Tame. ^-^^ immediately preceding his own, Taine 
(1828-1893) was a Positivist. He believed in the possibility 
of constructing a science of human conduct on a basis of 
positive laws ; but such a philosophy can only lead to pessimism. 



Literature under the Republic 53 

Man was to Taine a " ferocious gorilla/' wearing a varnish 
of artificial manners and furnished conventionally with 
notions restraining instinct, or else a maniac, the victim of 
his hallucinations. 

Ernest Renan (1823-1892) was another literary product 

of the second half of the nineteenth century fashioned and 

thrown up by the great wave of Positivism. 

rnes enan. -^-^ influence upon critical literature after 
1870 was stronger than that of any other writer. It pene- 
trated deeply also into the spirit of imaginative literature. 
He launched a literary and philosophic creed, less sincere 
and more modern than Positivism, to which the name Dilet- 
tantism has been given. Renan had not the speculative 
originality nor the strength of conviction to be classed with 
leaders of men in the higher regions of thought. As regards 
his destructive action upon religious ideas, his role was rather 
that of a scarecrow than of a destroyer. He was, however, 
a great literary artist — one of the greatest of modern times. 
To this quality was added an arsenal of learning, but his 
erudition did not make him a pedant. Had it done so, his 
life's work would have left but little trace, for it would have 
destroyed the simple charm of his style, or rather would have 
prevented him from acquiring it. He combined in himself 
the critic and the poet, and some of the most poetic prose in 
the French language is to be found in Renan's writings. 
Such was the seduction of his literary art, that it is not 
surprising he captivated younger minds and inspired them 
with his own dilettantism, the nature of which is suffici- 
ently indicated in the following passage from his Dialogues 
philosophiques : — 

"As for me, I taste of the whole universe by means of 
that kind of general sentiment which makes us sad in a sad 
town, and gay in a gay one. Thus I enjoy the pleasures of 
the voluptuous, the debauches of the debauched, the worldli- 
ness of the worldly, the holiness of the virtuous man, the 
meditations of the seer, the austerity of the ascetic. By a 



54 France of the French 

sort of tender sympathy I imagine that I am their conscience. 
The discoveries of the savant are my property ; the triumphs 
of the ambitious are to myself a festival.'* 

As old age approached, Renan appeared to break away 
from the last moorings of respect that held him to the shore 
of Christian morals. VAhhesse de Jouarfe is a lamentable 
exhibition of the enthralment of a great intellect by a per- 
verted senile imagination. Nevertheless, the fascination and 
authority of this wizard of letters was such that his influence 
was great to the last, and continued after his death. It 
had much to do with the direction taken by several writers of 
note under the Republic, if it did not actually switch them 
on to the rails. 

The influence of realism was not identical with that of 

Positivism, although nearly allied to it. The former was 

more directly concerned with art, the latter 

The Realists, with philosophy ; but the two are not to be 
separated. Those who are at all familiar 
with the history of modern literature have general notions 
of the struggle between romanticism and realism in France, 
which became acute towards the middle of the last century, 
but apparently by a natural process of evolution ended in 
the triumph of realism. Stendhal, Balzac, and others who 
commenced their journey in romanticism ended it in realism. 
George Sand, in her later years, was drawn to depict with a 
conscientious fervour for exactness in drawing and colour 
the rustic life of the province to which she was most attached 
by sentimental ties — the Berri. Victor Hugo also moved 
somewhat with the times, although he stood aloof upon his 
rock, raising his voice above the roaring of the sea with the 
certitude that it would be heard afar. At the time of the 
fall of the Empire the influence most felt by all the later 
writers of fiction was that'of Flaubert. The brothers Edmond 
and Jules de Goncourt, Alexandre Dumas the younger, and 
Th^ophile Gautier, were also among those who helped to set 
the current of realism running at irresistible speed, although 



Literature under the Republic 55 

they were not responsible for the abuses in which it culminated 
under the name of " naturalism." 

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), the large-limbed, full- 
blooded Norman, who physically seemed more marked out 
to sail the seas in quest of adventures like 
^" ^^ * the Scandinavians of old, from whom he 
was probably descended, than to become a patient gold- 
beater of words and phrases and a virtuoso-like observer of 
the merits and flaws — especially the flaws — of human nature, 
had a romantic imagination and disposition ; so much so 
that he was capable of any excess in this direction. And 
yet he was destined to be regarded as the father of the later 
realists. The passion of travel, the yearning for vast 
horizons, the sensuous ardour to bathe in sunshine and colour 
far away on classic ground of romance and poetry overflowed 
his mind in his younger days ; but the fate that lay in wait 
for him was the making and undoing, or retouching of 
sentences, the beating out of the period under the hammer with 
infinite pains, only perhaps to put it into the melting-pot 
again. Year after year the great artificer bent over his 
task, scarcely moving from it except by day. The boatmen 
on the Seine at Rouen were as familiar with the light of his 
lamp shining from a certain room over the river all through 
the dark hours as they were with any beacon set up for their 
guidance. That he belonged by temperament to the romantic 
and imaginative school of writers is proved by his choice of 
such subjects as Salammho and Herodias, and the success 
with which he resuscitated a dead past. Nevertheless, he 
had evidently persuaded himself early in his career that 
to paint reality rather than to suggest it was the object to 
be aimed at by the literary artist. These are his words : 
" Keep the model in view always, and nothing else. Distrust 
that kind of warming up which is called inspiration, and in 
which there is often mere nervous emotion. I know those 
masked balls of the imagination from which one returns with 
death in the heart — exhausted, ennuye, having seen nothing 



56 France of the French 

but what was false." He thus attacks imagination in its own 
language. Few men believed more than he that the mission 
of art is to lend a charm of its own to reality, in fact, to 
embellish it with the ideal ; but the studied realism of so many 
of his pictures of life, elaborate in detail to a degree that 
sometimes leaves upon the reader a painful feeling of tension 
due to over-concentration of mind upon small surfaces, had 
an enormous influence upon the literature of fiction under 
the Republic. No work called a ** romance " by a nineteenth 
century writer, and in the French language, is more a classic 
than Madame Bovary, not because of the realism with which 
the characters are drawn, although this is the very best 
literature of its kind, but because of the polish of style and 
imaginative vigour — kept in restraint, so that the means 
never go beyond what the purpose demands — which combine 
to produce the effect of consummate art, from the inception 
to the completion of the structure. 

With the brothers Edmond (1822-1896) and Jules (1830- 

1870) de Goncourt, the realism of Balzac and Flaubert 

descended rapidly towards the " naturalism " 

' de^GoncouTt! ^^ ^^^^' ^^^ brothers were little else than 
realistic chroniclers of their times — note- 
takers of the society in which they moved ; shrewdly observant, 
vigorously and concisely descriptive, with artistic sense too, 
and expert in the use of language, but with very limited 
imagination. Their pretended application of scientific 
methods and principles to the making of fiction, as well as 
the crude and daring descriptions scattered throughout their 
work, stimulated imitators not only to employ the same 
literary process, but to leave these pioneers of naturalism 
far behind them on the road. Before continuing to follow 
the course of this movement under the Republic, and then to 
speak of the principal prose writers of the present day, it is 
fitting that something should be said about the poets of 
contemporary France. 

As in the case of prose literature, it would be almost 



Literature under the Republic 57 

impossible to touch the subject of poetry under the Republic 
without going back a little farther and marking off the poets 

whose influence was most felt towards the 
Poetry ^^^^ close of the Empire, or which was beginning 

to be felt then, and to become a heritage to 
be handed over to the succeeding epoch. As a poetic 
influence, that of Victor Hugo was paramount for at least 
ten years after the Franco -German war, and as regards 
the multitude of people of ordinary education and ordinary 
taste who have a few of the standard poets represented on 
their bookshelves, but whose impressions of verse belong 
chiefly to their schooldays, it is probably so still ; but long 
before his death, the poet of the Legende des Stacks, notwith- 
standing the splendour of his imagination and his faculty of 
making the most of all the resources of the French language, 
was taking up a position more and more isolated. Where 
the literary movement was intense he was becoming demode, 
like Alfred de Vigny, who was only a few years his senior, 
but who died in 1863. Hugo, who was born in 1802, lived 
on to 1885. 

In 1866, thirty-seven poets, most of them young men, among 
whom were some quite unknown to fame, but who, helped by 

talent, perseverance, and friendship, reached 

n . in course of time celebrity, laid their lyres 

Parnassians. -^ ' -^ 

together, and collectively presented to the 
world a volume of poems entitled Le Parnasse Contemporain. 
According to the plan it was only an instalment of a work 
which was to be completed in eighteen parts. Among the 
contributors were Lecomte de Lisle, Theophile Gautier, 
Theodore de Banville, Fran9ois Copp^e, CatuUe Mendes, 
Jose-Maria de Heredia, Louis Menard, Emile Deschamps, 
Leon Dierx, and Paul Verlaine. The Parnasse Contemporain 
did not make its second appearance until 1871, and its third 
and last was in 1876. The word " Parnassiens " came to be 
applied to this group of poets as though they represented 
some particular school of poetry, whereas in reality there 



58 France of the French 

was much divergency of thought and aim among them. The 
Parnassian movement was, however, connected with that 
new " cult of form " which will be dealt with presently. 

Lecomte de Lisle (1818-1894) touched a lyre which gave 

forth very different sounds from those of the young Fran9ois 

Coppee, and the difference was much more 

de TS? marked in the case of Heredia. Lecomte de 

Lisle had won his place in literature long 

before the Parnassians were heard of. To that sentimentahty 

to which the French have given the term lyrisme, he added a 

philosophic pessimism which was the maladie du siecle when 

it came to put on a scientific pose. This poet had examined 

all religions, and had sifted all the civilizations of antiquity, 

and his cry was : — 

Que de sanglots perdus sous le ciel solitaire ! 

Apart from his pessimism he was too learned, too instructive, 
to be popular ; for the soul of the people can only respond to 
poetry that is simple, and which moves the feelings as the 
wind moves the leaves. 

The poet of the scientific and philosophic wave on which 

the literary life of France floated more or less buoyantly in 

the middle of the nineteenth century, and 

Prudhomme which only began to lose itself in the soil a 
few years since, was Sully-Prudhomme (1839- 
1907). Others rose on the same wave, but did not identify 
themselves with it in the same degree. The philosophic muse 
that inspired him was not a happy one, for under this influence 
he drew from his lyre the saddest sounds that have ever issued 
from the strings of a phantom instrument given to all poets 
for their consolation, and sometimes for the torture of man- 
kind. Although the tone of his mind was so woe-begone, 
and its tendency analytic to such an extent that one might 
have supposed, prima facie, that this would have disqualified 
him for the work which was the chief occupation of his life, 
his place is among the foremost of the French poets of 



Literature under the Republic 59 

later times. The task that he set himself to do, which was 
that of compelling the scientific spirit to take an imaginative 
and poetic form, was one of incredible dif&culty, and it 
must be allowed that the measure of his success was wonderful, 
although his poetic flame only now and again yields more 
warmth to humanity than the wintry sun gives to the earth 
from which it is hidden by dense and piled-up snow-clouds. 
The abstract and metaphysical thoughts, coloured with 
the dreariest pessimism, which he managed to cast into 
delicately chiselled and generally melodious verse, even 
when the nature of the theme placed it on the level of prose, 
were an insuperable barrier to popularity in the case 
of SuUy-Prudhomme. As an analytical lyrical poet he 
often unites the most sombre thoughts with beautiful 
images taken direct from nature and expressed with an 
art that makes the words live in the memory. As an 
example, the following extract from one of his sonnets will 
suffice : — 

La tdche humaine est longue et sa fin d6cevante. 

Des generations la derniere vivante 

Seule aura sans tourmente tous ses greniers combles, 

Et les premiers auteurs de la glebe feconde 

N'auront pas vu courir sur la face du monde 

Le sourire paisible et rassurant des bles. 

Here we have ideas, not necessarily true> but profoundly 
sad and perfectly expressed. 

When the scientific, or philosophical, mood was not on him, 
and he was simply human, Sully-Prudhomme could express 
feeling with infinite tenderness and deep notes of sadness. 
Quite recently a short poem, Pardon, written nearly half a 
century before his death, was published posthumously. The 
subject was too personal, and in a sense too sacred, for the 
poet to take the public into his confidence respecting it. 
The story he tells is that of a youth in love with a woman, 
probably older than himself, and who must have amused 



60 France of the French 

herself at his expense rather wantonly to have called forth 

such verses as these :— 

Pour peu que votre image en mon ame renaisse, 

Je sens bien que c'est vous que j'aime encore le mieux. 

Vous avez desole I'aube de ma jeunesse, 

Je veux pourta^nt mourir sans oublier vos yeux, 

Ni votre voix surtout, sonore et caressante, 

Qui penetrait mon coeur entre toutes les voix ; 

Et longtemps ma poitrine en restait fremissante 

Comme un luth solitaire encore emu des doigts. 

Ah ! j'en connais beaucoup dont les levres sont belles, 

Dont le front est parfait, dont le langage est doux. 

Mes amis vous diront que j'ai chant6 pour elles. 

Ma m^re vous dira que j'ai pleure pour vous. 

J'ai pleure, mais dej4 mes larmes sont plus rares ; 

Je sanglotais alors, je soupire aujourd'hui ; 

Puis bientot viendra I'heure ou les yeux sont avares, 

Et ma tristesse alors ne sera plus qu' ennui. 

Oui, pour avoir brise la fleur de ma jeunesse, 

J'ai peur de vous hair lorsque je serai vieux ... 

— Que toujours votre image en mon ame renaisse ! 

Que je pardonne a Fame en souvenir des yeux ! 

The meeting of poetry with the scientific movement of the 

nineteenth century, of which there are suggestions of subtle 

tenderness and sublimity in Tennyson's 

The Cult j^ Memoriam, was in its later phases inti- 
of Form. , , ' _ , ^ , , . 

mately related m France to an absorbing 

and somewhat fastidious cult of " form," in opposition to 

the romantic poets, their rhapsodical flights, and their assumed 

negligence in the art of verse chiselling. By giving more 

critical attention to the value of words and the richness of 

rhymes, a strong endeavour was made to produce greater 

effects within narrower limits ; not so much by the strength 

of the ideas themselves as by the perfection reached in the 

art of expressing them. Theophile Gautier, Sainte-Beuve and 

Theodore de Banville did much to set the fashion in this 

direction. The tendency was to cause over-condensation in 

expression, and the multiplication of ** picture words," which 

often resulted in vagueness. The movement naturally led 



Literature under the Republic 61 

to an extensive revival of the sonnet, which was cultivated 
with the most painstaking assiduity. 

Among the later sonneteers, more remarkable as artists in 

the structure and finish of their poems, than as message - 

bearers to mankind from the depths where ideas originate, 

was Jose-Maria de Heredia (1842-1905), 

J. M. de Heredia. ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ Trophies, published in 1893, 

and which obtained for him a ^eat in the Academy. In his 
sonnet on the Master Goldsmith, we have a very accurate 
portrait of himself as a poet : — 

Le vaillant maitre orfevre a I'oeuvre des matines 
Faisait de ses pinceaux d'ou s'6gouttait Temail, 
Sur la paix nieillee ou sur Tor du fermail 
Epanouir la fleur des devises latines. 

One admires the exquisite finish of such sonnets very much as 
one admires a piece of goldsmith's work, cunningly engraved 
and enamelled by a Benvenuto Cellini. 

Fran9ois Coppee (1842-1908) probably produced more 
verse than any other French poet whose literary activity 

must be referred to the same period. His 
Francois Coppee. connection with the career of letters was 

formed under great trials and difficulties, and 
nothing reveals so strongly the superiority of his character as 
the steady courage and manfulness with which he preserved 
his ideals, and yet proved equal to his duties in those early 
years. As a youth his education was interrupted at the 
Paris lyc6e, where he had not been very long, by family 
misfortunes, and he had to leave the " humanities " to earn 
money as a clerk. Then he lost his father, and the strain 
of duties laid upon the young Francois, copying clerk in a 
public ofiice, was extremely severe. Nevertheless, he found 
time to accomplish prodigies of self-instruction, and also to 
cultivate his gift for versification. At length, at the age of 
twenty-two, he succeeded, by what efforts may be imagined, 
in getting a small collection of poems, Le Reliquaire, published. 
Its merit attracted notice, and extended the circle of his 



62 France of the French 

literary friends. In 1869, Le Passant, a piece in verse, was 
produced at the Odeon with Sarah Bernhardt, then twenty- 
five years of age, but very Uttle known, in the principal part, 
and its success ensured for him a recognized place in the 
literary world, and for her the admiration of the critical 
public. There are verses in Le Passant so gracefully turned, 
and so charming in thought, that they became quickly popular 
and have remained so. Here is a familiar example : — 

Mignonne, voici ravril, 
Le printemps revient d'exil. 
Tous les nids sont en querelle, 
L'air est pur, le ciel leger, 
Et partout Ton voit neiger 
Des plumes de tourterelle. 

Frangois Coppee joined the Parnassians, but was never 
labelled a " decadent " like some of his youthful associates 
in that movement. His poetry is wholesome and free from 
mannerisms, but it often runs perilously near prose. He 
cultivated the realistic muse in direct relation to the lives 
of the humble and unpretentious {Les Intimites, 1868, Les 
Humbles, 1872), and for this reason his poems are far more 
familiarly known in France than those of SuUy-Prudhomme, 
although they show less imaginative power. The trying 
circumstances under which this Parisian of Paris grew to 
manhood, his intimate knowledge of the heroism and virtue 
of a multitude of small people who make an unselfish and 
noble fight through life with adversity and various affiictions 
influenced greatly the direction of his sympathies and gave 
to many of his poems their charm of feeling. In these 
are to be found true and pathetic pictures of the struggles 
and hardships of the working class, and the petits bourgeois 
of Paris. By his sympathies he is a kinsman of Crabbe, 
although the scenes described by both, and their methods, 
are so dissimilar. Coppee stands unrivalled as the poet of 
the Paris faubourgs and crowded suburbs, with the joys and 
sorrows of the populace. He could find poetic inspiration 



Literature under the Republic 63 

in such subjects as The Little Grocer of Montr ouge. His fame 
will rest much more on his simple and forcible treatment of 
that Parisian life, which is anything but fashionable, but is 
fuU of human interest, than on his later pieces for the stage : 
Severo Torelli, Les Jacobites, and Pour la Couronne, all of 
which are in verse. It is to be regretted that during the 
last ten years of his life he allowed his patriotism and his 
religious fervour to draw him into the malodorous swamp of 
politics. He was elected an Academician in 1884. 

M. Jean Richepin's life has been a protest against conven- 
tion and all restraints, social and intellectual, A hater of 
harness and bit, he has been one of the wildest 

M. Jean ^£ ^^ riders on the savannas of literature, 

Richepm. , .. . , , , , , ' 

and if m these later days he has come to be 

so far tamed as to wear a cocked hat and sword, and green 
coat with black braid — the uniform of an Academician — we 
may be sure that only the necessity of working, and the 
cooling down of the blood with advancing years, would 
have brought him to this highly civilized state of mansuetude. 
His own explanation of his character is his passion for 
independence and freedom. There is a legend, which he has 
himself encouraged, that there is some gypsy blood in his veins, 
and his wanderings all about France, when a young man, with 
a company of nomads, sleeping a la belle etoile, or in a caravan, 
according to the weather, and exhibiting his accomplishments 
as an athlete at the fairs, for which profession nature has 
well fashioned him, are a sufficient proof that the vagabond 
spirit, of which he is proud, is not a vain boast. It might 
weU be supposed that a man with such tastes must have 
greatly neglected his intellectual training ; but the notion 
would lead wide of the truth. The dark-skinned, curly- 
haired young ** Hercules of the fair" had already estab- 
lished his reputation by the university test as the best latinist 
of his generation in France. To his familiarity with the Latin 
classics, his firm grasp of the parent idiom of the French 
language, much of the conciseness and vigour of expression 



64 France of the French 

to be noted in his poetic work is attributed. After his 
gypsying, and when he had settled down to work with his pen, 
in Paris, the vagabond spirit would imperiously sieze him from 
time to time and carry him far away to strange adventures. 
There is a story, that being one day in London, very empty in 
pocket and otherwise, he was attracted by the blandishments 
of a recruiting sergeant, from whom he managed to get a 
dinner ; but the British army did not get this recruit. 

M. Jean Richepin was born in 1849, and may therefore be 
claimed by the Republic as one of its own poets, the more so 
as his sympathies are entirely democratic. In his Chanson 
des Gueux, to which he owes a literary celebrity, made by a 
tour de main like a pancake, he stepped forward as the poet- 
brother of all the tramps and ragged- Jacks in France. Had 
a " Cour des miracles " still existed, he would have made 
himself its accredited poet, with or without a stipend. His 
daring use of language in this work — only made tolerable by 
the consciousness of his artistic power over words — had 
much to do with its quick success. He appeared to give 
himself the mission of rescuing language from the gutter, 
and bestowing upon it the rights of literary citizenship. Of 
his subsequent works, La Glu and Les Blasphemes are the 
best known. He has never been guilty of weakness in 
composition, but he is often fatiguing by the exaggeration 
of his sympathy in directions where it is mostly wasted, and 
by a cynical realism that sometimes touches the morbid. 

A poet of undoubted originality within a limited horizon, 
and who expressed the feeling of certain moods with a depth 

of sadness and a sincerity only possible in a 
Paul Verlaine. man who has suffered much by his own 

flaws and failings, was Paul Verlaine (1844- 
1896). He started on his literary course with the Parnassians, 
but when the movement was becoming rather one of words 
than of ideas, and under the pretext of attaining greater 
perfection of form, too much beryl, amethyst, and chrysolite 
was introduced into the sonnets with which the first ten years 



Literature under the Republic 65 

of the Republic were flooded, Paul Verlaine led the reaction 
against rules and the cult of form, and employing greater 
freedom, endeavoured to suggest rather than express the 
vague and the mysterious in human sentiment. Mawkishness, 
or hopeless obscurity, was more often than not the conse- 
quence. It was not long before most of these " symbolistes,'* 
as they were at first termed, or as they described themselves, 
were given the less flattering name of '* decadents." Although 
Verlaine was generally inspired by an unhealthy muse 
indicative of his own sad ending in a hospital, the accents 
of his moral distress found expression at times in true poetic 
form, and these utterances of a soul in pain have, since his 
death, awakened sympathy and pity, of which he had but 
scant experience during the closing period of his forlorn 
career. His principal poems were published under the titles, 
Sagesse (1881), and Jadis et Naguere (1885). 

The right place for M. Edouard Rostand in this book would 
be in the chapter on Dramatists, if he were not a poet above 

M. Edouard any other claim to distinction. Bom in 1868, 
Rostand. hig celebrity dates from the year 1897, when 
his comedy in verse, Cyrano de Bergerac, was produced on the 
Paris stage. The polish of style, the delicate touch, the 
graceful fancy, the musical charm of the verse, together with 
the mingled humour and pathos in the treatment of the 
subject, led the public captive at once. The spell was 
irresistible. M. Rostand had, however, produced earlier 
work : Les Musardises (1890), Les Romanesques (1895). 
Since 1897 he has written one other piece in verse, L'Aiglon, 
the interest of which is almost wholly concentrated upon 
that ghost-like figure in modem history, the young Duke of 
Reichstadt, son of Bonaparte and Marie-Louise. The success 
of this work, both in a literary and theatrical sense, was far 
from equalling that of Cyrano de Bergerac. Of late years 
M. Rostand has suffered from a somewhat precarious state of 
health, which must have been a drawback to his progress 
in the career of letters. Nevertheless, the position that he 

5— (2398) 



6S France of the French 

has won in literature is very remarkable in the case of one so 
young, and the more so when one considers that it rests 
almost upon a single work. M. Rostand entered the Academy 
at the age of thirty-four. He is the young Apollo among 
the Immortals of the Palais-Mazarin. 

One who has had a singularly mixed celebrity is M. Paul 
D^roulede, who was born (1846) with literary salt in his blood 
M. Paul — at least one may suppose so — his mother 
Deroulede. being a sister of Emile Augier. He was a 
student in the Latin Quarter when the war of 1870 broke 
out, and his patriotism, both ardent and combative, led him 
at once to shoulder the rifle. His young brother of seventeen 
followed his example. Both were at Sedan, where the younger, 
being dangerously wounded, was carried out of action by 
the elder. Paul Deroulede went to Germany as a prisoner. 
By inspiring his gaoler's daughter with the tender passion, 
he prompted her to connive at his escape. After a series of 
dramatic adventures he reached Bohemia, then Vienna, 
and returned to France by Turin. He joined the army of 
the Loire, and before the end of the war he had been in twenty 
engagements, distinguishing himself by reckless bravery. As 
an officer his career would have been a brilliant one, but 
peace having been concluded he chose that of letters. He 
became the poet of the Revanche, and under the influence 
of his intense patriotism and martial ardour, he wrote lyrics 
marked by a poetic fire and energy of expression, by com- 
parison with which most of his work done in calmer moods 
seems strangely weak and colourless. He must be at white 
heat for the muse to inspire him. After a very agitated 
political career, including some years of exile at San Sebastian 
in consequence of his having endeavoured to provoke a 
seditious demonstration of troops in Paris when the Dreyfus 
fever was at its climax, he has quieted down, and his time 
is mostly spent now upon his land near Angouleme, where he 
leads inoffensive days, like Horace on his Sabine farm. 

Contemporary France is rich in the number of her poets, 




Photo by 



Nadar 



M. ROSTAND 



Literature under the Republic 67 

but this is a kind of wealth that does not threaten to lead 

the public mind into dangerous flights of exultation. One 

of the most interesting of poetic figures 

^'Mbtrlf"^ is M. Frederic Mistral, who was born in 1830, 
and has devoted more than half a century to 
the ideal of reviving the literary reputation of the Provencal 
language ; but although the dignity and charm of his char- 
acter, uniting a rustic simplicity of life and tastes with a most 
cultured mind, is widely appreciated (he was awarded the 
Nobel prize in 1904), nothing is more certain than that his 
dream can never be realized otherwise than in the work of a 
few enthusiasts like himself. Their Romance dialect will 
remain as much a foreign tongue as Italian and Spanish to 
the vast majority of their own countrymen, who, instead of 
giving to it the study due to a language, will continue to 
speak of it contemptuously as a patois. Besides his poetical 
works, of which the most important is Mireillo, the subject 
of which has been made popular by Gounod's opera Mireille, 
he is the author of a Provencal dictionary. 

Among other poets who have found sincere admirers while 

remaining doubtfully known to the public, are M. Henri de 

Regnier, M. CatuUe Mendes, M. Edmond 

Other Poets. Haraucourt, M. Leon Dierx, M. Maurice 
RoUinat, M. Jean Aicard, M. Jean Lorrain, 
M. S. Mallarme (1842-1898), and Armand Silvestre (1837-1901). 
The last-named, after writing many sonnets and other lyrics 
of great merit, almost abandoned the muse in later life, and 
then became popular as a writer of contes and gaudrioles, 
the unclean humour of which obtained him the reputation of 
a modern Rabelais. 

After this rapid glance at the poetic literature of France 
under the Republic, we will now return to the prose writers 
who have flourished during the same period. 

The brightest, the most original, the most captivating, 
and at the same time the most healthy literary genius — the 
word genius, which should be used with great circumspection, 



68 France of the French 

seems in this case rightly apphed — that has shone in the 
intellectual atmosphere of the Third Republic, was Alphonse 

Daudet (1840-1897). He belonged partly 
^^^dT^ to the Empire, but the most prolific period 

of his literary life was after the war. Never- 
theless, some of his very early work should rank with his 
best. His Lettres de mon Moulin, for example, a collection 
of contes — a word that can only be awkwardly translated 
" short stories " — most of them full of the life, the colour, 
the humour of his native Provence, is one of the most exqui- 
site pearls of modern literature. Apparently artless, several 
of these contes are the perfection of art. If anything of 
the literary output of the last half century should live, 
Lettres de mon Moulin should be with it ; but this output 
has been so prodigious that with the truth before us that 
the human mind, like any common vessel, can hold but a 
certain quantity, and not a drop or scruple more, it is 
hazardous to make any predictions as to what will live in 
our later literature. 

It is a misfortune to literature that Daudet, who had such 
great qualities of his own, should in his younger days have 
fallen so much under the influence of the ultra-realists, 
notably of the brothers de Goncourt. He caught their 
frenzy for note- taking, and wherever he went after his place 
was fixed among the literary workers of Paris, he had a 
little book in his pocket in which he jotted down impressions. 
In this way he gathered materials for his series of books 
reflecting as in a mirror numerous phases of Paris life, as 
well as typical characters that were to be met with on the 
boulevard and in the drawing-room, or in the depths of the 
great Parisian whirlpool as far as he could penetrate them. 
Such works were Le Nabad, Les Rois en Exit, Numa Roumestan, 
and Sapho. Notwithstanding his acquired faith in the 
documentary method applied to fiction, the imagination of 
the poet, and the charm belonging to personality so over- 
flowed his self-imposed task, that these and other books 



Literature under the Republic 69 

did more than interest the pubHc for a season ; the pathos, 

the tenderness, the indefinable charm of the writer sank 

deep into many hearts. The true Daudet was a pathetic 

poet and humourist who wrote in prose. One feels that he 

was much more in his natural element while writing about 

Tartarin of Tarascon, with an imagination quite free from 

the shackles of " documents," than he was when working at 

his elaborate pictures of Paris life, which were too much 

" composed," in the painter's sense of the word. He was 

much more at home with his foot on the bridge of Tarascon 

than when it was on the pave de Paris. Daudet's sense of 

the comic is always closely related to pity and pathos. The 

three books containing the adventures of Tartarin make a 

work of imaginative satirical humour which should be ranked 

with the productions of the great masters in this branch of 

literature. 

If genius was a curse to any man, it was so to Guy de 

Maupassant (1850-1893). Whether it be considered high or 

low, the literary power that he possessed was 

Guy de orenius. At an early period it showed a 
Maupassant. ° . . 

morbid tendency in a certain ferocity of 

sensuality, from which it passed on to a dismal misanthropy, 

and then from madness to death in an asylum at the age of 

forty-three. Had he remained a government clerk, which 

was the position he was occupying at the age of twenty-five, 

after having done military service as a volunteer during the 

war, and had not the clamorous encouragement of the public 

after the appearance of Boule de Suif rendered it impossible 

for him to be anything else than a successful author, it is 

safe to say that Guy de Maupassant would not have ended 

so young and so miserably. As a government clerk in the 

Naval Department he was earning £60 a year. A few years 

later he was in receipt of a large income from the sale of his 

books, which were turned out of hand under the excitement 

of a veritable literary frenzy. This frenzy was fatal to him. 

The genius of the writer was not so much in the freshness 



70 France of the French 

of his conceptions, in the originality of his ideas, as in his 
Uterary sense, which was truly marvellous. He had the 
power of making a thought luminous with a peculiar glow of 
expression, often a very sinister glow. A nephew of Flaubert, 
he considered himself a disciple of the author of Madame 
B ovary, but he developed a style that was truly personal. 
He threw himself into the " naturalist " movement with 
ardour, swung the thurifer to Zola with other young men of 
his time, and was one of the contributors to Les Soirees de 
Medan. It was, in fact, in this collection of short stories 
by members of the coterie that Boule de Suif made its 
appearance. 

The great quality of Guy de Maupassant is descriptive 
intensity. It placed him above Zola, for he could give in a 
few words the whole picture and all the sensations of a scene, 
which the former presented in cinematographic fashion, 
detail after detail. Not that Maupassant abhorred detail, 
or flinched from the horrible and revolting ; but he knew 
instinctively how to winnow in order to produce the fullest 
literary effect. He was a great artist with low ideals, or 
with others that got drowned early and whose corpses he 
could not throw overboard, but was condemned to carry to 
the end of his voyage. This may explain the great change 
in him after a too exuberant youth to a maturity embittered 
by increasing melancholy and pessimism, which fostered a 
morose and unhealthy tendency to throw into relief cruelty, 
selfishness, lust — all that is most damning in human nature, 
with an intensity of purpose and interest much more artistic 
than moral. Notwithstanding their generally depressing 
effect, such works as Bel Ami, Fort comme la Mort, Une Vie, 
and Notre Cceur, will long be read on account of their literary 
brilliancy. 

The case of Emile Zola (1840-1902) is one that should offer 

matter for reflection to authors who succeed 

mi e o a. ^^ hypnotizing the public, and are apt to 

conclude from this that their fame has been established 



Literature under the Republic 71 

for ever. The greater part of his work is fast becoming little 
else than a literary curiosity. It is difficult to say whether 
the best or the worst of it will be the more attractive ten 
years hence to the generation that is now cutting its names 
on school desks, but according to the signs of the times the 
readers who are coming will not crave for any of it. And 
yet, some twenty years ago and later, all France was talking 
of Zola and his naturalism, and most of the literary critics 
were quarrelling over him. As a maker of books for sale his 
success during his flourishing period was greater than that 
of any of his contemporaries. The clerk in Hachette's 
publishing house shot up from obscurity like a rocket, filling 
the firmament with strange sparks and disquieting odours. 
He carried naturalism to its perfection, but also to its death. 
His strenuous efforts to set forth the workings of the assumed 
law of moral heredity in the Rougon-Macquart series proved 
nothing, because there is no such law known to man. The 
theory which he propounded with such scientific unction 
rests upon hypothesis. His scientific scheme merely pro- 
vided him with a plausible pretext for satisfying depraved 
curiosity by drawing to the surface all that lies deep in many 
a pool of vileness foully human. To suggest that his success 
did not rest on remarkable talent and power would be absurd. 
The whole question here is the direction of talent and power. 
That the direction was wrong is proved by his complete 
failure to hold the public after having captured it by exciting 
and gratifying its curiosity. When the literary motive is 
morbid and vitiated, the work that it produces is condemned 
to death. Who has read L'Assommoir, or La Bete Humaine 
twice ? Once is enough for anybody of sane mind. No 
lovers of literature are scared by mere coarseness and gross- 
ness. Most of the great humourists have been very coarse ; 
but Zola had no spark of humour. He worked with the muck- 
rake in a sort of grim frenzy, without any moderating sense 
such as belongs to the just perception of human incongruities. 
Therefore his pictures are full of false tones. A critic of 



72 France of the French 

no less authority than M. Jules Lemaitre has said that Zola's 
talent was really that of the epic poet, because by sheer 
force of imagination he could throw extraordinary life into 
such things as a great shop and a great railway station. It 
is not easy to picture a poet in the boots of an egoutier, but 
the intense feeling of living reality that Zola threw into 
many of his descriptive passages, as, for instance, in the 
whole story of Sedan {La Debacle), indicates a prodigious 
faculty of imagination. 

Zola's remains have lately received the honour of sepulture 
in the Pantheon. This decision of Parliament, however, was 
much more related to the writer's civic courage in connection 
with the Dreyfus affair than to his work as a man of letters. 

Emile Zola split on the rock of his physiological theory, 
and the view of his declining star may have stimulated 
M. Paul Bourget to persevere in the direction 
M. Paul Qj^ psychology. He was born in 1852, and 
began to be known about the age of thirty 
as a vigorous writer with fresh ideas on psychological problems, 
but only as an essayist and critic. A few years later began 
to appear the succession of psychological novels : Crime 
d' Amour, Andre Cornelis, Mensonges, Le Disciple, Un Cceur 
de Femme, Cosmopolis, L'Etape, etc., on which his fame rests. 
There is more than a trace of naturalism in M. Bourget' s 
work, especially in his earlier productions. In his youth its 
influence was very much in the air, and he could hardly 
escape it. But as his powers ripened, and he felt the ground 
growing firmer under his feet, he became more and more 
fascinated by the problems of the human mind, and pursued 
the study without the cumbersome baggage of pseudo- 
science and hypothetic laws of heredity. Mental and moral 
analysis of the most delicately subtle sort became woven 
with his stories of modern life and society. M. Bourget has 
often been spoken of, and sometimes with a suggestion of 
contempt, as the favourite author of the woman of fashion. 
Without doubt his talent has obtained for him much success 



Literature under the Republic 73 

among ladies who live chiefly to shine in society ; but his 
work does not by any means appeal to the frivolous-minded. 
In fact, his tendency is rather to overdo psychology and to 
interrupt the interest of a story by excursions along misty 
paths of moral analysis — an intellectual exercise that the 
novel-reading woman usually abhors ; but it is only natural 
that the sex whose psychological problems have absorbed 
his interest and stimulated the searching activity of his 
mind to a degree so little flattering to men, should respond 
by taking an exceedingly keen interest in his work, especially 
in the social regions, whose labyrinths he has explored with 
an almost exclusive passion. But his experiments in that 
ever fascinating alchemy, which consists of penetrating the 
impenetrable mysteries of the feminine soul, are not always 
flattering to women. It is the interest that he takes in the 
subject which is so. And then he is very indulgent, having 
nothing in common with the woman-scourging critic, with 
a lingering affection for such good old institutions as the 
ducking-stool. When he is cruel to women, he makes them 
feel that it is only to be kind ; which is another proof of 
his exceeding cleverness. Gathering years have deepened 
and broadened his human sympathies, and taken off the 
unpleasant edge of a too eager spirit of analysis and over- 
confidence in its penetration. Moreover, like several other 
eminent French writers, he has undergone during the last 
twenty years a very marked philosophical evolution from 
scepticism to belief in the supernatural origin of re.igion. 
His successive works are an interesting psychological study 
of the movement in himself towards Christian idealism. 
M. Bourget entered the Academy in 1894. His novel, Un 
Divorce, and its stage adaptation are mentioned in the chapter 
on *' Family Life." 

M. Maurice Barres, who was bom in 1862, followed M. Paul 
Bourget along the seductive paths of psychological fiction, 
and became also enamoured of the nebulous ideal of ex- 
plaining the eternal enigma, woman. There is, however, 



74 France of the French 

much more mere dilettantism in his work than in his senior's, 
and therefore a good deal less earnestness. In his three 

earlier novels, published as a ** Psychological 
^'B^rrS!''^ Trilogy " under the general title Le Culte du 

Moi, but distinguished as Sous VCEil des Bar- 
bares, L' Homme Libre, and Le Jardin de Berenice, his paraded 
lack of all convictions suggests too much a literary pose. The 
following words are his : " Dogmas and codes have put pity 
and justice into our blood. Now that we have assimilated 
the greater part of them, their formulas are only a source of 
embarrassment to us." The obvious reflection upon this is : 
If the stream no longer flows from the mountain, dryness and 
death will settle upon the valley. M. Barres has, however, 
been moved by a much healthier spirit in his later work, 
for example, in his '* Social Triology " : Les DeracineSy 
UAppel au Soldat, Leurs Figures. His strength lies not in 
his analytical psychology, which is apt to be tedious and 
obscure, but in his grace of style and poetic sense, whenever 
he chooses to be simple. His talent as a literary artist is 
set forth in nothing more forcibly than in his descriptions 
and impressions of Spain and Italy collected under the rather 
alarming title : Du Sang, de la Volupte et de la Mort, M. 
Barres was elected to the Academy and also to the Chamber 
of Deputies in 1906. The less he meddles with politics the 
greater will be the gain to literature, but it must be allowed 
that to an overworked writer an occasional hour spent at 
the Palais Bourbon may be an agreeable and amusing change, 
especially when £600 a year is paid as an " indemnity " for 
the derangement. 

M. Pierre Loti (Julien Viaud), the most poetic and romantic 
of naval officers, is a writer who cannot be easily ticketed 

as belonging to any school, or coterie, of 
fr' ifn^Vi ^df novelists. He is a school unto himself, and 

that passion for freedom which made him 
sail the seas and maintain his connection with the navy, 
notwithstanding his early and brilliant literary success, is 



Literature under the Republic 75 

reflected in the independence of his style and his methods 
as a writer. He was born in 1850, After the pubhcation 
of his first book, Le Manage de Loti (1880), there appeared 
in rapid succession, Le Roman d'un Spahi and Mon Frere 
Yves. A few years later came Pecheur d'Islande (1886), the 
best known of all his books, and the one in which the peculiar 
quality of his imaginative power is shown to greatest advan- 
tage. Nothing could be more vividly depicted than this 
struggle of the Breton cod-fishers with the forces of nature 
in the Polar seas. Pierre Loti has but little skill as a con- 
structor of plots : his talent lies in his sense of the picturesque 
and the poetic force that enables him to give life to his im- 
pressions and to fix them with a few strong dashes upon the 
literary canvas. He is an author who never fails to interest, 
because he feels so intensely what he writes, but he is not a 
great novelist or a deep thinker. Some of his works, Le Desert 
and Jerusalem, for instance, are really books of travel, but 
it is precisely in these that his talent appears to find its most 
genial and brilliant mode of expression. He entered the 
Academy in 1891. 

M. Anatole France, who was bom in 1844, is the acknow- 
ledged chief in the domain of fiction of those living French 

writers who, owing to a certain tendency of 
M. Anatole thought or studied mental attitude, have 

come to be termed " dilettantists." Allusion 
has already been made to the movement in the remarks on 
Renan — the strongest of all influences working in this 
particular direction. It is, however, closely related to the 
scepticism of Montaigne. The philosophy of M. Anatole 
France and his followers — if it may be termed a philosophy — 
rests on premisses which are merely negations. Thus we 
know nothing absolutely to help us to understand the mystery 
of life and its origin, the human mind being incapable of 
separating the true from the false in abstract ideas. All is 
vagueness and incertitude, and to try to see on the other 
side of veils of impenetrable thickness is waste of time and 



y 76 France of the French 

intellect, also waste of abundant opportunities of cultivating 
the pleasures of the mind, which we may seize and enjoy 
not a whit less, because all our idealism is mere pastime and 
vanity, except in the present satisfaction that it brings to 
him who cultivates it. All literary and artistic sensations, 
all zeal for learning, all enthusiasm for the beautiful, whether 
concrete or abstract, are mere phases of sensuahsm. One 
man is enchained by the baser satisfactions of the senses, 
another is enthralled by artistic aspirations and the loveliness 
of the visible ; but these are only differences of degree, or 
direction, not of kind. The peculiarity of this dilettantism 
is that it professes to be opposed to pessimism. Because 
nothing endures and everything is uncertain, is no reason, 
in the opinion of M. France, why people should not be happy 
while life lasts : their duty to themselves is to indulge freely 
in all sports of mind and body. In his own mind there is 
no revealed melancholy. He appears to revel in his own 
artistic and intellectual sensations. They belong to his 
nature, and he considers that he has made the most 
of them — for himself. Dilettantism cannot be anything 
else but selfish. It is the philosophy of self-gratification 
and self- worship. 

As a writer, M. Anatole France takes one of the highest 
places occupied by living Frenchmen. As a thinker the same 
distinction should not be allowed him, for his dilettantism, 
stripped of its literary ornaments, is surely one of the most 
forlorn and naked of beggars. Among the best known works 
of fiction by M. France are : Thais, Le Lys Rouge, Monsieur 
Bergeret d Paris, and Les Noces Corinthiennes. That, however, 
on which his fame should chiefly rest is one of his earliest 
» works : Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard, published in 1861. 

Although the literary reputation of the late M. Ludovic 

Ludovic Halevy (1834-1908) belongs more to the 

Kalevy. stage than to what is termed in France " la 

librairie," the appearance of his novel, L'Abbe Constantin, 

toward, the close of the nineteenth century was an event of 




Photo by 



Ghautier 



M. ANATOLE FRANCE 



Literature under the Republic 77 

considerable importance. Its healthy tone and strong effect 
of character drawing, produced by simple means, came like 
a gust of cool storm-wind to a sultry, miasmic city. It 
had a marked influence on turning the tide of naturalism. 
La Famille Cardinal is another well-known novel by this 
author. M. Halevy entered the Academy in 1884. His 
famous collaboration with Henri Meilhac for stage purposes 
is noticed elsewhere. 

M. Georges Ohnet is another novelist who gave a vigorous 
impulse to the same reaction. Too much Zolaism had 

brought about a sickness of the mind, and 
^*Oh^°t^^^ the appearance of Le Maitre de Forges 

happened most opportunely for its author. 
It is a plain story of middle-class life, with a good deal of 
dramatic interest, of which the phenomenal success of the 
stage adaptation is a proof, and coming when it did it was a 
refreshing one. M. Ohnet 's literary success was, however, 
not maintained by his subsequent works. He was born in 
1848. 

M. Marcel Prevost has for a good many years been one of 
the most popular of French fiction writers. His ambition 

has been fully rewarded, for throughout his 

M. Marcel ^ork there is evidence of consummate 
Prevost. , ... . , 

cleverness m attammg success, without any 

cumbersome baggage in the way of ideals. He was born 

in 1862, and is therefore still reckoned with young writers. 

He has the reputation of being a great favourite with the 

novel-reading Frenchwoman, which goes to support the 

notion that women fall in love with their least flattering 

critics, at all events in literature. He is a subtle and ruthless 

analyst of the society woman, and his contempt for women 

in general may be inferred from his work without much 

risk of doing him injustice. If his pictures of French society, 

and especially Paris society, are to be taken as studied from 

the life, either the author's experience has been singularly 

unfortunate, or the state of morals among the extensive 



78 France of the French 

class who have time and means to cultivate pleasure and 
idleness is deplorable. But the literary parti pris, and 
exaggeration for the needs of sensationalism, are so obvious 
in his work, that this should save the French women from 
much of the reproach which he inferentially casts upon them. 
His Demi'Vierges, which had an immense succes de librairie, 
is an example of the little reliability that can be placed 
upon his pictures of contemporary life in France in any but 
a very restricted sense. M. Prevost censures the deadly 
sin which is the everlasting resource of the crowd of French 
novelists and dramatists, but most of his literature turns 
round it, and while he affects to abhor the gangrene, his 
pathological details concerning it are unnecessarily minute, 
and serve no useful purpose. In reality all this is no more 
than the art of making books to sell. Whatever may be 
thought of this author's influence and the direction of 
his mind, his skill as a writer cannot be questioned. 
His latest work. La Fausse Bourgeoise, is a scathing 
criticism of that middle class to which he, in common 
with most people in France, who do not live by manual 
labour, belongs. 

M. Paul Hervieu is another writer who has given himself 
the mission of describing modern society, especially the 
"seamy side" of it. He is a deft satirist, 
Her^eu ^^^^ ^ leaning towards caricature ; neverthe- 
less, some of his pictures of ridiculous rasta- 
quouereSy dangerous adventurers of exotic origin with 
fictitious or doubtful titles who figure in Paris clubs and 
drawing-rooms, are drawn with a line-engraver's precision. 
His style often lacks equipoise, and his ideas are sometimes 
so tangled that it is not easy to unravel them ; but the 
lancet of irony and mockery that he uses has a keen edge. 
Peints par eux-memes, Flirt, and V Armature, are among his 
well-known society novels. He is also a dramatist. M. 
Hervieu was born in 1857. 

A writer of real talent and very strange contrasts of 



Literature under the Republic 79 

character, which were fully reflected in his work, was the 

late J. K. Huysmans (1848-1907). His earlier books are 

stained by ultra-naturalism and disregard of 

„ J* ^' decency, but in later years he became very 

Huysmans. -^ . -^ -^ 

much of a religious mystic, put on an Oblate' s 
habit, and led for some time a semi-monastic life, while 
continuing his literary work. This, however, underwent a 
complete change of direction, of which the best illustration 
is La Cathedrale. Here he enters into the spirit of Gothic 
architecture and Christian symbolism with extraordinary 
fervour. In En Route he describes the circumstances under 
which he entered a Trappist monastery, and the conflict of 
his thoughts while there. His originality as a writer is 
marred by eccentricities of style and expression. Although 
born in France, he was of Dutch origin. 

M. Pierre Louys is a writer of the fleshly and erotic school 
who has come much into notice of late. He professes un- 
bounded admiration for everything Hellenic, 
L "^ s-i^^i prefers the frank aesthetic looseness of 
antique morals to the manners of modern 
society, which he considers loose enough but hypocritical. 
His Hellenism makes him appear sometimes an apologist of 
licence, and leads him to indulge the depraved curiosity of 
readers while endeavouring to persuade them that he is 
instructive and edifying. He is the author of Aphrodite and 
Chansons de Bilitis. When scandal was caused by the 
appearance of naked women on the stage of Paris music- 
halls, he came forward in the press as an apologist of nudity 
for scenic and choregraphic purposes. He cannot be charged 
with inconsistency. M. Pierre Louys was born in 1870. 

The French, as a nation, are but feeble lovers of nature 

and rural life, although they have produced such painters as 

Millet and Corot. They revel in dejeuners 

Rust?c^Stories ^^^ I'herbe, and fetes champetres, but their 

ideal pictures of rustic enjoyment are still 

very much after Watteau. Mr. Thomas Hardy, had he been 



80 France of the French 

a Frenchman, would have appealed to too restricted a public 
to have made the reputation that is his in England. 

The late Andre Theuriet (1833-1907) had a very fine 
sensitiveness to impressions from nature, and he wrote a 

series of stories of which the best known are 
Andre Theuriet. La Maison des deux Barbeaux, Sauvageonne, 

and Le Refuge. They are marked by elevation 
of thought and pure idyllic charm. But although he had many 
enthusiastic admirers, he had the sagacity not to cut himself 
adrift from his administrative employment. For the high 
merit of his literary work he was, however, rewarded with a 
seat in the Academy, which means income as well as honour. 
M. Emile Pouvillon, who was born in 1840, has devoted 
his literary life to describing in the form of fiction the manners 

and customs and scenery of that most 
M. Emile romantic, but little known, part of France 

the Quercy and the Rouergue. And he has 
done this with the realist's sense of exactness as well as 
with the feeling of a poet. There is dehghtful deHcacy of 
touch in his pictures of rustic life. His principal works are 
Jean de Jeanne and Les Antihel. 

M. Rene Bazin has done for the provinces of La Vendee 
and Anjou what the writer just named has done for the 

Quercy and the Rouergue. But M. Bazin 

M. Rene j^^g „Qj^g farther afield and has woven with 
Bd.zin. 

his romances fascinating descriptions of 

Alsace, Sicily, and Spain. In La Terre qui Meurt he analyses 

and exalts the sentiment that attaches man to the soil. 

A later work of which the scenes and characters are also 

rustic is Le Ble qui Leve. In this, as in the preceding story, 

is to be noted a deep and full-hearted sympathy with the 

toiler upon the land, whether in the fields or in the woods. 

The author's pictures are vivid, his language is clean cut, 

and keen observation combined with broad thoughtfulness 

abounds everywhere. The land attracts him precisely 

because his mind is not terre a terre. There is a good deal 



Literature under the Republic 81 

of sadness in his work, but no pessimism. He believes in 
the necessity of spiritualizing influences to sustain and 
develop the virtue of human nature. His tendency is to 
deal with sociological questions through the medium of 
fiction, but he does not enforce his own views to the disturbance 
of the interest of a story, and although reckoned with Catholic 
writers, he shows a wise moderation and a philosophic aloof- 
ness from politics which some others in the same field would 
have done well to practise more. M. Bazin was lately elected 
an Academician. 

Frenchwomen are not busy in the broad fields and narrow 
lanes of literature to anything like the same extent as are 

Englishwomen of the present day. This, 
Women and however, is largely explained by the very 

firmly rooted and widespread opinion in 
France that the right and respectable destiny of woman is 
to '* occupy herself with her interior," which means to concern 
herself with the affairs of her house. Throughout the 
bourgeoisie in easy circumstances, more or less ambitious to 
increase its influence by marriage and money, women who 
follow an independent profession are regarded with prejudice 
which may blend with pity or reprobation, as outward 
circumstances and the intelligence of the critic decide. The 
woman who writes or paints for money is very liable to get 
tarred with the brush of Bohemianism by her friends and 
connections, although in reality she may not have crossed 
the frontier of Bohemia. Of course, the stage is considered 
altogether out of the question in France as an outlet towards 
which feminine talent and energy can be decently turned. 
In the best circles of French society, where culture is real, 
where broad ideas are inherited and snobbishness is almost 
unknown, there are no narrow prejudices against women 
who work, because they work ; but those who live in this 
atmosphere are not many, and the tide of the new bourgeoisie, 
with all its worship of success and, one is bound to add, 
vulgarity of thought, is rising higher and higher. Nevertheless, 

6— (2398) 



82 France of the French 

the number of women engaged in literary work is rapidly 
increasing in France, and their influence upon the direction 
of thought is, with few exceptions, elevating and beneficial. 

Madame Adam (Juliette Lamber, born in 1836) should be 
first spoken of in treating of the literary women of France 

under the Republic, on account of the number 
^d^m^ of years that she has been busy with her 

industrious pen, and the position she has 
occupied as a woman of high culture. She is one of the 
few of her sex — if we except the forlorn social renovator 
and idealist, Louise Michel, and others of that stamp — who 
have acquired political influence during the period mentioned. 
An ardent Republican herself, her salon in Paris was in the 
early years of the Republic frequented by many notable 
politicians, who with her were waging bitter war against the 
traditions of the Monarchy, the Empire, and the Church. 
She became styled, rather in mockery by those who resented 
her activity, the " iEgeria of the Republic." At one time 
her friendship with Gambetta and his belief in her sagacity 
were such that it is known he often consulted her on affairs 
of State. Then they quarrelled, on what ground is still a 
matter of conjecture, but whatever the reason, the broken 
harp was never mended. It is needless to speak here of 
Madame Adam's political writings, either in the Nouvelle 
Revue, which she founded in 1879, or in other publications, 
for whatever objects were furthered by them they do not 
belong to literature. As a writer of fiction her cultivated 
sense of language and imaginative power have brought forth 
desert fruit through the errors of a judgment out of equipoise. 
Her neo-Hellenism is an absurdity. Greek ideals and views 
of life cannot be restored for modern use. If Europe is to 
become pagan again, it will have its own kind of paganism, 
not that of the Hellenes, adapted and flavoured for its use by 
Madame Adam. Payenne and Voyage Autour d'un Grand Pin, 
are the books in which Madame Adam's ideas are clothed in 
their most attractive garb. 





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Otto 



Literature under the Republic 83 

The most popular lady novelist among contemporary 
French writers is the Comtesse de Mirabeau-Martel — far 

better known by her nom de guerre, " Gyp." 

"^yP " Gifted with a very shrewd perception of 

de Martel). character, a quick sense of the ridiculous, 

and an inexhaustible fund of vivacity, she has 
written many stories of Paris life, which are satires as well 
as novels. A society woman herself, she is well qualified for 
the kind of work she has made especially her own, which is to 
sketch and satirize the bores, humbugs, whited sepulchres, 
wolves in sheep's fleeces, smiling ambassadors and ambassa- 
dresses of the Devil, who are the pest of Paris cosmopolitan 
society. She has a taste for slang, and being well bred can 
indulge it boldly. She excels in sprightly dialogue, but is 
capable of descriptive passages lit up with flashes of humour 
and pathos. Her literary reputation was made by Petit Bob, 
and this clever story is still its firmest foundation. " Gyp " 
is much of a journalist as well as a novelist, and she made 
the mistake of bounding into the inkiest part of the arena 
of politics when the Dreyfus question was red-hot. She 
evidently enjoyed the sport of pulling all Israel by the beard, 
but she would have done better to have reserved her energy 
for work in which her talents would have shown to greater 
advantage and yielded a more lasting return. Madame de 
Martel was born in 1850. 

There are several other women writers of note in France of 
to-day. Conspicuous among these by the charm of unaffected 

graceful style, and a delicacy of sentiment 
^^^WritlrT^" that is the gift of high-strung feminine 

sensibilities, is Madame Alphonse Daudet. 
Her literary work is of modest bulk, but it is full of charm. 
UEnfance d'une Parisienne, in which she gives us the impres- 
sions of her childhood in Paris, is exquisite. Madame Pierre 
de Coulevain has, during the last few years, taken a very 
prominent place as a writer of clever and interesting stories, 
marked by much insight into character and observation. 



84 France of the French 



A 



Ulle Inconnue, a study of English life, went far to strengthen 
her position in the opinion of her own country-people, as 
well as to make her better known in England. Sur la Branche 
is another of her successful novels. 

Among other women of notable talent, who take a con- 
spicuous place with femmes de lettres of the present day, 
are Mesdames Judith Gautier, Daniel Lesueur, Comtesse 
Mathieu de Noailles, Marcelle Tinayre, Dieulafoy, Gabrielle 
Reval, Arvede Barine, and Georges de Peyrebrunne. 

A branch of literature formerly much cultivated in France, 
and which afforded a literary refuge to men of brilliant 
intellectual faculties and attainments, namely, 
IS onans. history, is becoming more and more neglected. 
The causes of this, however, are not hard to find. It is 
the past that usually provides material for the historian, 
and the past has been ransacked by writers of all nations in 
search of it. Then there is this grave discouragement to 
those who, if they listened to their own disposition, would 
be fascinated by historical research : literature that does 
not trip with a light step and make amusement its object 
rather than instruction finds so few readers to-day that 
publishers show complete lack of eagerness to bring out any 
sort of " heavy work." Michelet's manuscripts might very 
well have gone begging now had the date of his birth been 
pushed a good distance on, and he had not risen to fame in 
the last century. Although he, Mignet, and Thiers lived 
into the new epoch, that is the Third Republic, their work as 
historians virtually finished with the Empire. Among 
historians who have won distinction in later times are Albert 
Sorel (1842), author of U Europe et la Revolution Frangaise, 
and Histoire Diplomatique de la Guerre de 1870. M. Lavisse 
(born 1842), author of Allemagne Imperiale, etc., and M. 
Henry Houssaye (1848), author of Histoire de la fin duPremier 
Empire, etc., and M. G. Hanotaux, the historian of Richelieu. 

Ten years or more before the death of Taine in 1893, the 
late M. Ferdinand Brunetiere (1829-1906) had reached 



Literature under the Republic 85 

distinction in the domain of higher criticism. In addition 
to his brilhant contributions to the Revue des Deux Mondes, 
he produced a Hterary history and a philo- 
^^ ^^^' sophical work, L'Evolution des Genres, which 
was pubhshed in 1894. La Faillite de la Science fell among 
the scientific sceptics like a bomb, because the author until 
then had been regarded as one of the living pillars of Free 
Thought. Its appearance, however, did not synchronize 
with his return to Christian doctrine. He simply burnt his 
ships in public so far as his former belief in science as a 
substitute for religion was concerned. He declared science 
to be bankrupt by reason of its hopeless limitations in relation 
to the phenomena of life and the mysteries of the universe. 
This movement of mind at length culminated in his acceptance 
of the doctrines of the Church of Rome. His example had a 
great influence upon contemporaries, notably upon M. Jules 
Lemaitre, who likewise abandoned Free Thought, and with 
it much of that " dilettantism " which marked his earlier 
writings. 

M. Jules Lemaitre (born 1853) now takes the leading place 
among French literary critics. His Les Contemporains is 
of unequalled strength and brilliancy in the particular field 
that it covers. He is a master of polished irony. Among 
other contemporary critics whose work belongs to literature, 
are M. Jules Clare tie. Academician, who has also contributed 
much to fiction, M. R. Doumic, M. E. Rod, who is of Swiss 
origin, M. de Vogue, M. E. Faguet, the Abbe Klein, M. Pellisier, 
and M. A. Brisson. 



CHAPTER V 

THE PRESS 

The line of separation between literature and journalism 
in France has always been very indistinct, but as time goes 

on it is becoming more distinct. French 
'^^th ^N ^^^ journalism is fast losing the literary salt that 
Journalism, it once had, and the standard of style 

adjudged suitable and sufficient for news- 
paper readers is in every salle de redaction allowed to fall 
lower every year. One only has to look over the files of half 
a dozen of the leading Paris papers of twenty years ago and 
compare them with the same number of to-day, to be convinced 
that the change is not superficial, but deep. Although it is 
true that many writers for the Press who acquired much more 
than a Parisian reputation have disappeared during the last 
two decades, the explanation does not lie here. It is not a 
mere question of individuals and personal qualities. The 
true cause is in the evolution — not in the sense of improve- 
ment — that French journalism has undergone in response 
to the new requirements of the public and the stress of 
competition to meet them. The manufacturer who will only 
turn out cloth made of good wool, and who is consistent in his 
respectable abhorrence of mixing with it either cotton or 
shoddy, will probably not have long to wait for the dignity 
of heroic ruin. He will realize that he has either to move 
with the times, or move out of the way. Paris journalism, 
speaking collectively, has moved prodigiously with the times 
of late years, and the consequence is that it is not the same 
article at all that it was. 

The Paris Press has become much more enterprising : it 
gives full news now of everything sensational that happens 
in every part of the world. It has its own correspon- 
dents in foreign capitals, who are authorized to use the 



The Press 87 

telegraph — with discretion ; it has even been known in 
quite recent years to go to the expense of sending war corre- 
spondents to distant parts of the earth. In 

^Lesf iTtSlr ^ ' ^ ^*^^^' ^* ^^^ reahzed that what the pubHc 
Salt. expects from the daily Press now is interesting 

news, as sensationally dished up as possible. 
The taste for criticism as a literary art, for the chronique 
showing knowledge of the world and familiarity with letters, 
light and rippling in form, but polished in style, with its 
deftly managed transitions from one topic to another, also 
for the elegantly written political article, venomously mordant 
perhaps, but of fine metal dexterously worked and capable 
of producing artistic sensations, if it has not become quite 
blunt, has lost so much of its keen edge that it is largely left 
out of account now by those who carry on newspapers as a 
business, and aim above all things at popularity and a big 
circulation. Experience has proved again and again that 
whereas a hundred persons will read with avidity a spicy 
" interview " with a leading actress, or a picturesque and 
humorous report of a sensational trial, it is doubtful if half 
a dozen will find an equal pleasure in the literary flavour 
of a critical article, however brilliantly written. 

The occasion seems to be a fitting one for introducing here 

some personal recollections. When the writer of this book 

came to Paris in 1878, to stay and to work, 

'^'hl'^Emprre^'' ^^^^^^^ ^™^^s in regard to the hterary, 
political, and artistic life of France, all the 
prominent figures connected with the Paris Press were men 
who had received their training under the Empire. It must 
have been a splendid school that of the Empire, considering 
the number of gifted and altogether remarkable writers it 
fashioned in the mill of journalism. The Republic owes 
probably more than it will ever admit to the help that the 
Empire rendered it in this way, but certainly with no inten- 
tion of performing any such service. The greater number of 
these writers who belonged to two epochs derived much 



88 France of the French 

of their proficiency in the art of interesting the pubHc to 
the difficulties under which they were placed in saying all 
that they wished to say. The struggles of the Press to 
obtain freedom of expression went far to force the best talent 
to the side of the Opposition, and thus the young Third 
Republic found at once a ready-made Press of great brilliancy 
and strength. Without doubt, many who called themselves 
Republicans then would quarrel seriously with their political 
bedfellows if they were under the same blanket with them 
to-day. Most of them, however, are not exposed to such a 
trial, for the sufficient reason that they are dead. 

That liberty of the Press, which was regarded by all the 

valiant champions of human progress under the Empire as a 

glorious ideal, may have benefited society 

The Revenge gj^^^^ j^ ^^^ ^^^^ achieved, although the 

^* rapidity with which this freedom brought 
unbridled licence in its train may justify some doubt on the 
point ; but apart from all considerations touching morals, 
it is most certain that the far stricter censorship imposed 
upon the Press by the Imperial regime was excellent discipline 
for the young writers whose style was formed by it. By 
dint of being constantly compelled to pick their words, they 
attained that literary skill in the use of them which marks 
the real superiority of the journalists of that epoch. In 
polemics there was plenty of hard hitting and plain speaking, 
but the means employed were rarely vulgar or brutal. Irony 
was the favourite weapon used in journalistic assults upon 
the Government and the men in power, who had long arms 
for defending themselves and attacking if the obnoxious 
critic was so unwary as to disclose a vulnerable spot. But 
irony, to be used adroitly and effectively, must not be clumsy : 
the more highly tempered the steel and the finer the polish 
it wears, the greater the dread that it inspires. The political 
writers, journalists, or pamphleteers who were trained in the 
school of the Second Empire were accomplished ironists. 
When they wanted their meaning to be read between the 



The Press 89 

lines, they knew how to place it there and to give a deadly 
glitter to their phrases, without running much personal risk 
beyond perhaps a duel on " the Belgian frontier " — as it was 
customary in those days to announce the event, because 
the Empire was much less tolerant of duelling than the 
Republic has been. Towards the close of this period, how- 
ever, the attacks of the Press upon the Government became 
bolder and more truculent, and Henri Rochefort, with his 
periodical pamphlet, the Lanterne, led the vanguard of a 
coarser and more vituperative style of journalism. Never- 
theless, there was much more literary flavour in his writing 
than when some years later, after his escape from New 
Caledonia, he wrote from Geneva, and later still when the 
Amnesty brought him back to Paris and he found the 
censorship virtually extinguished. 

The first ten years or so after the Franco- German war were 
a very brilliant period in the annals of French journalism, 
because the Republic received as a legacy all the younger 
writers who had fought their way to prominence under the pre- 
vious regime and had survived the disasters of 1870-71, and not 
a few veterans who had smelt the powder of the old political 
conflicts of the " July Monarchy " and the Revolution of 1848. 

Among these was John Lemoinne (1815-1892), whose 
English blood, derived from the maternal side, was supposed 
by his contemporaries to have accounted for 
John Lemoinne. something of that calm and rigorous logic 
which ran through his articles, but was held in perfect 
combination with the qualities that gave to his polished style 
a savour that was infinitely relished by French readers, 
especially by those of his own generation. When one thinks 
of the eagerness with which his articles — generally on foreign 
or international politics — in the Journal des Debats — were 
looked for and read some five -and -twenty years ago, and 
still later, one realizes how great the change is that has taken 
place during the interval in the mental attitude of the French 
towards journalism. 



90 France of the French 

John Lemoinne, however, was only one of these notable 
journalists. Most of them were more than journalists ; they 

were men of letters in a wide sense of the 

About and term by their intellectual acquirements and 

Sarcey. their accomplished work. Such a one was 

J. J. Weiss (1827-1895), who died as a State 
librarian at Fontainebleau. Another, with a wider reputa- 
tion, was Edmond About (1828-1885), who founded the 
XIX^ Steele in 1871, after becoming well known as the author 
of Le Roi des Montagues, and other works. He, like his con- 
temporary, Francisque Sarcey (1828-1899), who for so many 
years wrote the dramatic feuilleton of the Temps, passed 
through the Ecole Normale Superieure, and appeared to be 
marked out for the routine of a professorship under the 
University. Both caught the writing fever early, and 
abandoned the security of the pedagogic career with its 
ample prospect of distinction for the superior excitement 
of trusting to their pens to reach Parisian heights of fame. 
The interest then taken by Paris, and in a lesser degree by 
the provinces, in dramatic criticism was such that the Temps 
had to provide for an increased circulation on the day that 
it published Sarcey's weekly feuilleton. 

The public had not yet learned to expect its dish of 
criticism on the morning after the general rehearsal of a 

new piece, or at least after the premise. It 
Dramatic g^^g ^^ served up very hot now, but the sauce 

is much less artistic. The grands chefs 
who made a special study of that kind of cookery at the time 
when it brought substantial rewards are mostly gone, or 
have hung up their aprons and linen caps. That brilliant 
dramatic critic, Theophile Gautier, was still at work after 
the war, but only for a little while. He died in 1872. Jules 
Janin (1803-1874), equally celebrated in this field, soon 
followed him. His place was taken on the Journal des 
Dehats by Paul de Saint- Victor (1827-1881), who continued 
to contribute his dramatic feuilleton — so literary in form — 



The Press 91 

to this paper until early in the eighties. After him came 
M. Jules Lemaitre, then a young man, but who by his 
familiarity with the ancient and modern classics and the high 
cultivation of his critical faculty was soon regarded as a 
worthy follower of such predecessors. He must now be 
allowed the first place in France among living critics of the 
drama. M. Henri de Lapommeraye (1839-1891) held his 
position as an eminent dramatic critic during the first twenty 
years of the Republic. He wrote chiefly for the France — now 
only a recollection. Among others of note who belong to the 
present day are M. Adolphe Brisson, who succeeded the late 
Francisque Sarcey on the Temps, and M. Catulle Mendes, 
the poet, who performs the same function for the Journal. 
But, as already indicated, the public taste for this literary 
form of journalism having sensibly declined during the last 
decade or so, writers of this class are by no means the power 
that they were in the intellectual life of Paris ; or rather, 
the life is far less intellectual than it was in a general sense, 
the subjects of interest having become so multiplied, and 
the common tendency being to spread curiosity over an 
ever-widening surface. The disappearance of all criticism 
worthy of the name from the newspaper, strictly considered 
as such, seems to be only a question of a few years. 

The mention of the France recalls to mind Emile de 
Girardin (1806-1881), a very interesting figure in French 

journalism, and a man who played an active 
de Girardin P^^^ ^^ ^^^ political history of his country. 

He was the pioneer of the cheap press. In 
1836 he founded the Presse, which by means of advertisements 
he was able to publish at a price that quickly obtained for it 
a circulation which dumbfounded competitors. Here it may 
be observed that only quite recently has the French public 
taken to the newspaper system of commercial advertising 
with anything like confidence, and this movement is due 
to foreign influence like much more that has changed the 
complexion of the Paris Press, The violent polemist who 



92 France of the French 

killed Armand Carrel, editor of the National, in a duel, and 
who as deputy voted for the election of Prince Louis 
Napoleon to the Presidency, was nevertheless a fiery thorn 
in the side of the Empire. A man all nerves and activity, 
he founded the Liherte in 1866, bought the Petit Journal in 
1872 and the France in 1874. From this date until the end 
of his tumultuous career his articles were always looked for 
in the France, and the interest that attached to them only 
ceased with himself. From being a Liberal Imperiahst he 
had become a moderate Republican, but he was always 
combative. It was in his nature to be so ; in fact, the same 
was in the nature of nearly all journalist-politicians of his 
age and generation. Their business had no meaning to them 
unless they were in a constant state of white heat, real or 
assumed. The type is dying, but is not yet dead. Henri 
Rochefort and Edouard Drumont try to keep up the 
tradition, but like well preserved muskets, they have become 
more interesting as curiosities than formidable in battle. 
An article would have to be written by some journalist 
of the planet Mars to set all the Boulevard agog to-day. The 
world has grown colder, or perhaps simply busier with its 
own affairs. 

Personal journalism has had a long and splendid run of 
success in France, but its day appears to be nearly over. A 
personal style went with it, as a necessity. 
Personal Some affectation arose from the effort to 
make it distinctive. Emile de Girardin 
cut his sentences so that there was sometimes a string of them 
with barely half a dozen words in each. Every one of these 
short sentences was supposed to be extraordinarily pregnant 
of meaning : wisdom in a crystallized and highly concentrated 
form. To emphasize this they were frequently given a 
separate line without any other reason. Even Victor Hugo 
was not above employing the same bill-posting trick. What- 
ever Emile de Girardin wrote, however, was ravenously read, 
and the sale of the France depended upon his articles. 



The Press 93 

It was the same with the Univers in the time of Louis 
Veuillot (1813-1883). He was the sledge-hammer journaHst 

of the poHtical, militant Catholics — the 
Louis Veuillot. Ultramontane Party as they were then 

termed. Although he was capable of 
snatching the laurels from Rochefort in vituperative 
journalism, this cooper's son who had strayed from the 
neighbourhood of casks into the Republic of Letters, could 
be, when he chose, a more polished writer than the Marquis 
de Lu9ay. His articles were eagerly read for the sake of 
their peculiar savour even by his adversaries, and when his 
work was done the paper with which his name had so long 
been associated fell to be little else than a recollection in the 
turmoil of politics. 

No kss remarkable an example than either Rochefort and 
Louis Veuillot of the value of personal journalism as an easy 

means of opening various social locks and 
d c^ rapidly attaining notoriety, if not exactly 

fame, was Paul de Cassagnac (1842-1904), 
although as a writer he was inferior to the former and did 
nothing which in literary strength could be measured with 
Veuillot's Les Odeurs de Paris. Nevertheless, he managed 
to take up one of the most prominent places in polemical 
journalism and to keep it for many years. His sword did 
at least as much to gain for him this renown as his pen. Had 
he been bom an Irishman, he could not have been more 
habitually eager for a fray. With such a temperament and 
following such a profession, duelling w^as to him an essential 
part of the business of life, and for some years, apparently, 
the most exhilarating. He did not share M. Clemenceau's 
taste for the pistol, nor emulate his skiU with it, but with 
his favourite weapon the sword he was a redoubtable 
antagonist. His duels which are best remembered now 
were those with Rochefort, Lissagary, the Communist, and 
a virulent journalist himself, Flourens and Aurelien Scholl. 
He never killed an adversary, and had remarkable luck 



94 France of the French 

himself in escaping severe damage, considering the number 
of his encounters and the fact that he was sometimes very 
equally matched with fines lames like himself. Possibly 
there was some dilettantism and desire on both sides not 
to spoil the business. In any case, the duelling game was 
played with wonderful spirit and success by Paul de Cassagnac, 
who by this means as well as by the tumultuous scenes which 
he was constantly causing in the Chamber of Deputies by his 
violent speeches and interruptions during the first twenty 
years of the Republic, made his name known far and wide. 
He was sincerely devoted to the Bonapartist cause, but his 
two papers, Le Pays, which long since disappeared, and 
L'Autorite, which still exists and is carried on by his two sons, 
were more useful to himself than they were to the dead 
body which he strove to galvanize into new life. He was a 
thorough-going hater of all Republicans who had helped 
to fix the foundations of and give stability to the present 
regime, and his favourite term for the Republic was the 
opprobrious one of "La Gueuse " (the drab). He rattled 
off his daily thunder with admirable facility, and it was this 
diurnal dose of ereintement of '' La Gueuse " signed " Paul de 
Cassagnac," that sold his paper throughout the country. 
There were many people, especially in the provinces, to whom 
it was more necessary and stimulating than the indispensable 
cup of coffee. The story of the gouty old gentleman who 
found his own opinions so exactly expressed every day by 
M. de Cassagnac, and was so grateful for the comfort thus 
afforded him in his physical trials, that he remembered the 
pen-and-sword journalist handsomely in his will has been 
told often enough. 

The most typical representative of the old style of sledge- 
hammer personal journalism now living is Henri Rochefort, 

and he may be regarded as chief of the 
R ^h^r t school — facile princeps. The interests of a 

new generation and the ravages of time have, 
however, gone far to strike him off the active list. The 




From the painting by 



Baschet 



M. ROCHEFORT 



The Press 95 

Intransigeant, the paper he founded in 1880 and which rarely 

appeared without one of his characteristic articles, bristling 

with full-flavoured epithets aimed at adversaries and which 

were often comic by their boundless malignity combined 

with a tortured sense of the picturesque, lately passed into 

other hands. Even when one reads one of his latest articles, 

it is hard to connect such alertness of language, such energy 

in hurling poisoned spears with a man born in 1830. His 

public life has been a tangle of mistakes, contradictions, and 

inconsistencies, but the stormy polemics and dramatic 

political adventures with which he has been actively and 

prominently associated for nearly half a century, invest him 

with a real interest to the historian of modern France. He 

is a living link between the past and the present, representing 

as he does a very characteristic phase of the mentalite of an 

epoch which yesterday still belonged to us, but is not ours 

to-day. 

M. Edouard Drumont might be mentioned as another 

example of a newspaper's existence depending upon the 

individuality of a single man, who uses it as 

Edouard j^-g mouthpiece and makes it as it were a 

Drumont. , , f ,^^. , i i , ta - 

part of him. Without a doubt Drumont 

is the hfe and spirit of the Lihre Parole, the paper that gave 

to itself the special mission of preaching a crusade against 

Israel generally, and especially against the Jews who, under 

the Republic, have in such a very large measure increased 

their influence, in connection with finance, politics, and 

newspaper enterprise. Drumont, who was born in 1844, 

was one of the younger journalists who were making a mark 

on their times when the Empire was waltzing to its death, 

the sounds of the outer world being drowned by the then 

inebriating strains of the Offenbachian fiddle, and he fully 

profited by the rarefied and intensely exciting literary 

atmosphere of Paris. Although he took up the vituperative 

style of journalism later under the spur of his Jew-baiting 

frenzy, which carried him rapidly away from rational 



96 France of the French 

discussion to methods of persuasion too deeply tinged with 

fanaticism and degraded by their direct appeal to popular 

prejudices and ignoble passions of human nature, he lacks 

neither literary instinct nor culture for the career of letters, 

as some of his early writings, such as Mon vieux Paris, 

amply testify. Even now, when the humour seizes him, 

and he can forget for an hour or so his vicious hobby-horse 

whose diabolic springs are always capable of taking him 

on Mazeppa-like rides, he throws off an article full of 

clean-cut thoughts and suggestive reflections, seasoned with 

the old Attic salt instead of that fiery mustard the abuse 

of which has made most of his later dishes so trying to the 

palate. 

Edouard Drumont's anti-Semitic crusade may be said to 

date from the appearance of La France Juive in 1889. 

The prodigious impression produced upon 

"^^^ . the public mind by this fierce indictment of 
anti-Semitic ,^ ^ ■, . j 

Campaign. the Jews, who were represented as so many 

tentacles of greater or smaller size and power, 

of an immense octopus that, with the connivance of the 

French Freemasons, was drawing the vitality out of France, 

destroying the national character, and sapping the foundations 

of all that was respectable, was such that the success of the 

work had the unfortunate effect of making the author a man 

with a fixed idea — Jew-baiting — by which his intellect has 

been imprisoned ever since. La Fin d'un Monde followed, 

and in 1892 he started his newspaper, the Litre Parole. The 

needs, or supposed needs, of this special form of journalism 

led him to pay decreasing attention to that moderation of 

language which is one of the best fruits of mental culture. 

Henri Rochefort, with all the ardour of his fantastic character, 

threw himself into the same anti-Semitic campaign, which, 

whatever its original object, came to be directed more against 

the men who work the Republican ship than against the 

Jews. Rochefort had previously managed to reconcile his 

Communism with Boulangism, which after the suicide of 



The Press 97 

General Boulanger, in 1891, was continued under the name 
of Nationalism. Throughout the Dreyfus agitation, during 
which the judgment of many thousands of French people 
seemed to be quite unhinged by prejudice and the fury of 
political partisanship, Rochefort and Drumont vied with 
one another in the virulence of their attacks upon the Jews, 
as well as upon all those who without having any marked 
tenderness towards the modern representatives of Israel, 
had the moral courage to clamour for justice and enquiry 
in the case of a Jewish officer, who from being obscure was 
thrust suddenly and violently into a singularly unpleasant 
blaze of notoriety. This page of recent French history is one 
that few people in France now care to talk about. It is to 
be noted, however, that all those who, under the influence 
of political, religious, and social prejudices, allowed their 
judgment to be warped during that amazing agitation — and 
among these were men of high character and brilliant talents 
— have lost consideration according..to the importance of the 
stake which they laid on the table. Nothing has tended so 
much to put the guns of the anti-Semitic propagandists in 
France out of service as that deplorable state of mind which 
they reached of seizing upon any means to attain their end, 
without putting it first to the test of the critical sieve, or 
pausing to enquire whether it was just or honest. 

Journalism, from the time that the Press became a power 
to be reckoned with, has in France been much more person- 
ally connected with politics, or — if the word 
'^^^ Ladde^^^^**^ ^^ preferred — statesmanship, as a career 
than in England. The number of French 
politicians, more or less eminent, who have made use of it as 
a ladder to the kind of success which was in a special manner 
the object of their ambition, would make a very long list 
indeed. In fact, the difficulty would rather be to pick out, 
from the list of those who have figured as French legislators 
in the memory of the living, the men who have not made use of 
it to reach positions that they coveted. The generally persona] 
7— (3398] 



98 France of the French 

character of journalism in France makes the newspaper both 
a weapon and a self- advertising contrivance always ready 
to the politician's hand. There is also this to be taken 
into account, that almost every Frenchman, who has any 
gift for oratory and the science of politics, can write at 
least as well as he can speak. He can often write much 
more forcibly than he can speak. It is by no means un- 
common for an EngHshman who can make a very good and 
teUing speech to suffer tortures when he undertakes to write 
an article, or even a letter to a newspaper that is intended to 
set forth an argument in a lucid, concise, and effective manner. 
Not so with a Frenchman. He has much more of what may 
be termed the instinct of composition than the Englishman. 
If proof of this be asked for, let anyone compare the form in 
which the most trivial information is presented to the French 
newspaper reader and the form in which similar news is 
ordinarily given to the English one. In the latter case, no 
style is held to be necessary, and words are improperly used 
constantly ; in the other case, the style goes with the craft, 
indeed with very little apparent craft. There is a sense of 
the value of language, an ease in the choice of the right word 
or phrase to fit the idea, which is confidence — the first con- 
dition of success in making an impression upon the reader. 
Classical traditions and the great attention given to composition 
and style in all French schools may have much to do with 
this, but some subtle fluid that circulates like blood in the 
national constitution has probably still more to do with it. 
The Celtic strain must be remembered. It is to be noted that 
the Irish are more ready and fluent writers than the English. 
Comparative Uterary excellence, however, between races 
where the work of genius is in question, is another matter 
altogether. This may seem to be a needless digression, but 
it has its reason, if one only considers the enormous influence 
that the pen has had and continues to have upon the active 
politics, the strife of parties in France. 

Things have changed a httle since the time (under the 



The Press 99 

Republic) when prominent and ambitious politicians with 
large designs held it necessary to have their own newspaper 

to reflect their personal views and extend 
Statesmen- ^-^q scope of their influence ; but the system 

is not yet dead. It may blossom forth again 
with renewed vigour. The question is really one of men. 
Gambetta was a man of splendid energy and vast ambition, 
and the Republique Frangaise, which he founded in 1871, 
was the advocate of his opinions and policy until his death 
in 1882. His most formidable rival in the Republican 
camp, M. Georges Clemenceau, for a series of years had 
his own newspaper, the Justice, for which he wrote articles 
innumerable. Other examples of the kind might easily be 
given. Journalism, moreover, often appears to serve as a 
place of refuge to French statesmen who after glittering for 
a while on a pinnacle, in the full blaze of public interest, 
have been forced by circumstances to return to the ground. 
Thus Jules Simon found welcome hospitality in the Temps 
for several years before his death in 1896, and M. Gabriel 
Hanotaux, since he ceased to be Minister of Foreign Affairs 
in 1898, has been a very assiduous writer for the daily Press 
on foreign politics. 

Many are the cases in which men who have risen to high 
distinction in practical politics and diplomacy were journalists 

first. Among those who have so successfully 

The Press used the Press in this way as a means to an 

and Diplomacy, end is M. Pichon, Minister of Foreign Affairs 

in the Clemenceau Government, who, in 
return for services rendered to the Republic with his pen, 
was given a diplomatic post. He had the good luck to be 
French Minister at Pekin when he and other diplomatists 
were besieged in the British Legation (1900). The career 
of M. Camille Barrere, now ambassador of France at Rome, 
is even a more remarkable example of how the Press brings 
men forward and gives them brilliant chances in life. As a 
young Paris journalist, he was implicated in the Commune, 



100 France of the French 

and after the stirring events of 1871 he could not return to 
France until the amnesty of 1879 brought him back. The 
next year he was a secretary of Embassy. 

One often hears of the '* Boulevard Press," but the term 

has lost a good deal of its old meaning and application. It 

was originally employed to denote papers 

The Boulevard ^-^^^ ^^^^^ almost exclusively with topics 

of Parisian interest, such as the theatres, 

the gossip of the cafes and clubs, the latest society scandals. 

The Boulevard paper aimed at being frivolous, but it aimed 

still more at being bright, witty, satirical, and amusing. 

Esprit was the quality of qualities sought for, and it must 

be allowed that for a long course of years there was an 

extraordinary output to meet the demand. 

Villemessant (1812-1879) did more than any other man to 

launch this kind of journalism and to ensure its success. 

He founded in 1854 the Figaro, and its place 
"The Figaro." -^ ^^^ p^^j-^ ^^^^ -^ ^^-^^ ^^^^ ^f ^^le leading 

'* Boulevard paper," although in the evolution that it has 
undergone while adapting itself to a changed society, it has 
lost much of that character, and has put on the more serious 
airs of a general newspaper. Villemessant had the genius 
of journalism without being a writer of talent. He was a 
remarkable man on account of all that he succeeded in doing 
by the adroit use of other men's brains. He was a famous 
Parisian character, but his only real superiority was his acute 
perception, his flair of talent floating in the atmosphere of 
the Boulevard and Bohemia, which could be caught and 
conducted like electricity along the wires he had set for it, 
and which seemed a part of his own nature. Without a 
doubt he was a great stimulator as well as a utilizer of 
talent, and while working for himself, was infinitely service- 
able to the generation of young writers who, in the early 
days of the Empire, were groping to find an outlet for their, 
as yet, ill-defined craving to do something of note with 
their pens. 



The Press 101 

There were but few of those well-equipped journalists, 

bequeathed by the Empire to the Republic, whose wits had 

not received some sharpening on Villemessant's 

grindstone. His experience as a founder of 

Villemessant's newspapers went back to 1840. The 

Grindstone. ^ , ^ ^ , r.^ x r. ^i t-- 

Evenement (1865) came after the Figaro, 

but the only one that survives is that which 
by a happy inspiration was given the name of the most 
strongly-drawn of the worthless characters in Beaumarchais' 
immortal comedy. Most of the political writers, critics, and 
novelists who were helped onward by the Figaro moved into 
some other sphere of activity when their wing-feathers were 
long enough to give them confidence — Rochefort for instance — 
but some died in its service. 

Among these was Albert Wolff (1835-1891). He came 
from Germany, like Jacques Offenbach and others who played 

an influential part in the political, social, 
Albert Wolff. and artistic life of France during the Empire. 

He was, however, a naturalized Frenchman, 
and having passed his early days in Paris, he was adopted 
by the genius loci, and became as much a houlevardier in 
spirit as any houlevardier. He is an example of that power 
of assimilation which is, in French surroundings and its 
absorption of foreign elements, elsewhere alluded to. He 
made his mark chiefly as a chroniqueur and art critic, and 
during the first twenty years of the Republic he was one of 
the celebrities of the Boulevard. 

Although it cannot be said that he belonged to the Figaro, 
inasmuch as his literary fecundity enabled, if it did not compel, 

him to sow his ideas broadcast, Henry 

Henry Fouquier (1838-IQ01) worked in its harness 

Fouquier. ^ \ ■^ y f 

to the last. He succeeded Auguste Vitu 
(1823-1891) as its dramatic critic, but it was his chroniques, 
with their worldly wisdom, subtle reflections, and seemingly 
ingenuous sparkle of superficial wit, that chiefly made his 
reputation. He had all the gifts to produce lasting work in 



102 France of the French 

literature, but he was devoured by journalism. The Academy, 
however, recognized his superiority by making him one of 
the Forty. Before settling down to the life of the most 
hard-worked of boulevardiers, he shared the excitement and 
risks of the Garibaldians in Italy. 

The Boulevard Press was to some extent the result of the 
restrictions imposed by the Imperial Government upon the 

expression of opinion in the domain of 

"^^^ f'Ti^^"*^^ politics and the affairs of State. It stimu- 

Censorship. lated aU the powers of journalistic frivolity 

for the amusement of the public, for the same 
reason that the State spent money on fireworks with 
unprecedented liberality, and encouraged the pyrotechnic 
artist in believing that his time for fortune making had really 
come. But so much talent and malicious esprit got mixed 
up with the frivolity that the end in view was not served : 
it was the contrary that happened. With the exception of 
chroniclers of genial humour like Auguste Villemot, Charles 
Monselet, and Arsene Houssaye, who were litterateurs rather 
than journalists, it helped to fashion and launch a particularly 
inconvenient and mischievous type of writer for the Press, 
who brought the art of the spiteful chronicler, the forger of 
the mot cruel to perfection, because of the literary power 
which he was encouraged by the state of society to direct not 
only upon individuals, but upon all that the instinct of 
humanity recognizes as respectable. 

In this art of wounding and demolishing with caustic wit 
no journalist among his contemporaries, not even Henri 

Rochefort, was to be compared with Aurelien 
Aurelien Scholl. Scholl (1833-1902). He was one of the 

young men whom Villemessant helped to 
fame and fortune— or what might have been fortune had not 
the boulevardier humour to get the most out of the time 
present been constantly uppermost. Bordeaux had the 
honour of presenting him to Paris, or rather, he presented 
liimself to Paris when a. mere youth, after slipping the parental 



The Press 103 

chain, which he found too galling. He has told the story 
of his early escapades with much humour and satisfaction 
to himself. While his education was supposed to be progress- 
ing at the local lycee, he was improving it outside, unknown 
to his family, in the capacity of dramatic critic for a 
Bordeaux paper that was quick to recognize his precocious 
skill with his pen. One day an actress called at his parents' 
house and nearly took his mother's breath away by asking 
to see her gifted son. The visitor was sternly questioned 
respecting her business with " that child." She said she had 
merely come to thank the critic for all the kind things he had 
said of her. Thus the cat was let out of the bag, and from 
that day forth young Scholl's life at home was made 
unpleasantly exciting to him, any connection with journalism 
being regarded in those days by the bourgeoisie with social 
ambition, especially in the provinces, as highly dangerous 
and rather disreputable. As his father was unyielding in his 
refusal to encourage the literary aspirations that had suddenly 
brought dismay and the worst apprehensions into the family, 
Aurelien ran away from home with the connivance of a sister, 
who believed in his genius and who lent him her few hundred 
francs of pocket-money which she had long been saving up. 
Armed with this capital he boldly marched to the assault of 
Paris. In point of fact, he took the diligence from Bordeaux, 
but the metaphor correctly reflects his state of mind when he 
set forth upon his daring expedition. As prosperity is the 
reward of the brave as well as of the wicked, he got on rapidly 
and amazingly. The hospitable Figaro soon made room for 
him. Villemessant had not only a keen scent for all new 
talent in the market, but he paid well for it when it suited his 
purpose. Scholl's biting wit, united to supreme impertinence 
and daring, led to duels, but that was a part of the game. 
In a few years he was one of the most famous and certainly 
the most dreaded of the chroniclers, who endeavoured to keep 
up the fiction that the world — or the only part of it worth 
speaking of — is bounded on the West by the Madeleine and 



104 France of the French 

on the extreme East by the Porte Saint-Martin, with a little 
spare playground extending northward towards Montmartre 
and southward towards the Palais-Royal. This Bordelais 
of doubtless Germanic or Jewish origin, fastened himself to 
the pave de Paris like a limpet to a rock. Although his pen 
was usually dipped in gall, and he had no respect for any kind 
of decency, it was impossible not to admire the keen edge of 
his devilish wit and his literary sense of language, which made 
his writing at once concise and singularly incisive. There 
was scarcely a Boulevard paper of which he was not at one 
time a contributor, and his duels must have numbered about 
a score. Aurelien SchoU's mantle has fallen upon no one. 

It may seem that undue prominence has been given here 

to this writer, inasmuch as his work belongs from its nature 

to the most perishable of all literary work — jeux d' esprit on 

small events and scandals of the hour ; but it should be borne 

in mind that he was a singularly typical specimen of a 

peculiar journalistic growth, at once brilliant and mischievous. 

Among the men who have figured prominently in the Paris 

Press of late years, Henri Harduin (1850-1908) seemed to 

. possess SchoU's concise style and caustic wit 

Harduin. more than any other. The art of saying 

much and suggesting still more in a few 
words was often brought to perfection in his short articles 
of about fifty lines, in the Matin, which were generally cut 
like cameos ; but his sarcasms were not seldom disfigured by 
bad taste and frivolous profanity. 

A journalist that can use his pen like a very keen rapier is M. 
Henry Maret, who like most of the newspaper writers who 

formed their style under the Empire, has 
Maret drunk deep of the Voltairian fountain. He is 

a strong Radical, but a lettered one, and his 
Atheism, or Agnosticism, is not aggressive, but is generally 
tempered by a philosophic insight into the nature and needs 
of humanity. This placed him out of sympathy with the 
Radicals of a later couche, notably in regard to the policy of 



The Press 105 

sweeping away by a rapid series of legislative measures religious 
institutions, the work of centuries, which the profoundly 
political and eminently practical mind of that Roman of 
modern times, Bonaparte, realized the necessity of protecting 
for reasons of State. M. Maret's case is like that of many others 
who, from having been regarded as among the most dangerous 
and subversive of Radicals, have lived to find themselves and 
their ideas treated as vieux jeu by those who have come after 
them upon their own track, but have gone far ahead of them 
as demolishers of the past. He was long a deputy. His real 
strength, however, lies in journalism. This little, mouse-like 
man, so quiet in manner and inoffensive to the eye, can be a 
scathing ironist, but so delicate is his method, and so good- 
natured his humour that those whom he has ripped open are 
sometimes ready to believe that he has done them a good 
turn. 

M. Emile Bergerat is another Paris journalist who stepped 
over the border, marked by fire and blood-pools, between the 

Empire and the Republic, the year of his 
Bergerat. birth being 1845. He married a daughter 

of Theophile Gautier, has lived most of his 
life in the atmosphere of journalism and the stage and of those 
who still follow the dying art of the chronicler in the modern 
French sense of the word, is the best equipped, because in 
addition to a literary talent, irregular, fantastic, and brilliant, 
he has a memory well furnished with recollections and 
impressions of people and things that are gone — journalistic 
stock-in-trade, which with an irony that has its cruelty, 
always increases in value as the energy of the writer fails. 
The young often do not know what to write about that will 
interest the public ; whereas those who have been long 
gleaning in many fields may have good store of grain, but 
lack the spirit to thresh it out and put it into sacks. M. 
Bergerat, or *' Caliban " — his favourite nom de guerre — is a 
dramatist too, and the dream of his life has been to score 
a theatrical success that would enable him to live easily, and 



106 France of the French 

perhaps obscurely, the rest of his days. He has not yet made 
this " hit," and has been obliged to follow the fate of a 
successful journalist, throwing off with apparent ease abun- 
dance of originality, and taking umbrage at all sorts of 
scarecrows, real or imaginary. Who among readers of the 
Figaro is not familiar with the wrath of " Caliban " ? 

A veteran journalist of the type that ponders much, never 
makes mistakes, and whose ambition is to influence opinion 
by astute judgment much more than to 
dazzle by any literary glitter is M. Hebrard, 
who for so many years has been the director of that paper 
of long reflection and digestion, which was never known to 
have a fit of frivolity, the Temps. 

Two well-known journalists were recently removed by 
death, Arthur Ranc (1831-1908) and Emmanuel Arene 
(1856-1908). Both were intimate friends 
of Gambetta, and were greatly helped on in 
life by him. The former, however, was an adviser, whereas 
the latter was a protege — the Benjamin of the Opportunist 
coterie. Ranc had a strong taste for conspiracy, which soon 
after the turbulent events of '48 procured for him several 
months of leisure in the prison of Mazas, which, he was wont 
to say, he passed both pleasantly and profitably reading 
Balzac's romances and other literature that he might other- 
wise have been obliged to neglect. He was badly entangled 
with the insurrection of 1871, but managed to clear himself, 
although not without difficulty. A strong and virulent 
political writer, he died in the bed of a senator, which was 
to him better than the lit en paradis whose vision consoled 
the dying crusader after much sleeping on hard ground. 

Emmanuel Arene was a deputy at twenty-five, and he 

also died a senator, but it was in the stokehold of Paris 

journalism that he used up his life. He suc- 

^ XlnT^^ ceeded the late Henry Fouquier as dramatic 

critic of the Figaro ; but he was an all- 

lOund writer who turned out " copy " as a spinning- jenny 



" The Press 107 

turns out yarn. The breaking away from friends at the 
last minute allowed before the article had to be thought 
of and inwardly commenced, the jump into the cab, fresh 
cigar in mouth, head thrown back for a little rest and 
inspiration for the subject ; the printing office, diabolic 
grindings and groanings of machinery, heated, vitiated air, 
compositors waiting and sniffing for copy like famished 
wolves for flesh, scissors ready to cut each folio into two or 
three as soon as scrawled over — lastly, cerebral anaemia, etc. 
Such was his life and its ending. 

In taking this rapid glance at French journalism from 
the establishment of the present Republic until our own day, 
only the most prominent and characteristic personalities 
have been mentioned. Many others who have had an 
influence on their times through the medium of the Press, 
or who as products of their times present an interest to the 
student of social and intellectual movements in France, 
might be added to the list, if such a list were desirable. It 
might be extended, for example, by the addition of most of 
the writers who are mentioned in the chapter on literature, 
for in France the literary life and the journalistic life have 
almost constantly run into one another, and it has been very 
usual to speak of aU writers as " gens de lettres/' although 
the term is becoming less and less applicable to those who 
contribute to the daily Press. Then there is the almost 
bewildering category of political writers and reviewers, such 
as M. A. Mezieres and M. Francis Charmes, both Academicians, 
and in a less philosophic sphere, M. Jean Jaures and M. 
Camille Pelletan, who are prominent as journalists, but still 
more so as legislative politicians. 

The cheapening of the Press has done much to lower the 

literary quality of journalism in France. Until the nineteenth 

The Cheap century was well near its end, the price of 

Press. most of the Paris papers that the public 

reckoned with was 15 centinaes. Now one would have tO 



108 France of the French 

think and search to find more than four that continue to keep 
up this price : the Figaro, the Temps, the Gaulois, and the 
Gil Bias. They affect to appeal either to the rich in pocket 
or rich in brains and culture, and to treat the crowd poorly 
served by fortune as regards these advantages, but who hunger 
for the daily paper, as a negligible quantity. Nevertheless, 
it is probable that they will have ultimately to surrender or 
die proudly, although the choice of evils does not threaten 
them at present. Some years since the Journal des Debats 
descended half-way towards the democratic sou by publishing 
at 10 centimes. But it is the 5 centimes papers that now 
have the big circulation and are those read by the vast 
majority who read journals at all. The first of these was 
the Petit Journal, founded in 1863. It was followed by the 
Petite Repuhlique Frangaise, founded by Gambetta in 1875, 
and by the Petit Parisien, in 1876. Among the earliest of 
these halfpenny papers was the Soleil, well understood then 
to be the organ of the Comte de Paris and the Orleanist 
cause, and which under the direction of Edouard Perve 
(1835-1899), a veteran journalist of the best school, who 
closed his career in the uniform of an Academician, acquired 
some popularity. Now the halfpenny papers flutter about 
the boulevards like mayflies over a good trout-stream, and 
nowhere else do the fish rise more readily. 

The great extension which the system of advertising in 
newspapers has undergone during the last few years is 
directly connected with the revolution of French journalism 
in the direction of cheapness. 

It is becoming every day more difficult to mention a cheap 

paper that is not to some extent illustrated. The marriage of 

journalism with photography, whatever 

Ilkistrated ^^^ .^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^-^^ score of its morality, 

has proved amazingly prolific. The sensa- 
tional reporter, who has nearly everywhere pushed out of the 
field the literary journalist, works with the sensational 
photographer, when he does not unite the two characters in 



The Press 109 

the same person. There are, however, pubHshed in France 
some good illustrated papers which aim at artistic excellence, 
and are not in competition with the daily press. Even in 
these, it is easy to note how much art in this branch of 
pictorial work has suffered from the invasion of photography 
of late years. The photograph will serve the purpose of a 
cheap representation of things as they are, but a machine 
can never be anything more than a bad substitute for the 
living artist, who having a mind can present the same scene 
as truly as the machine, but far more suggestively. It is to 
be feared that the art of sketching from the life will meet 
with the same fate in France as that of wood engraving, or 
only be practised for the purpose of studies by painters, who 
understand the limitations of photography. The Illustration, 
founded in 1843, is still the leading illustrated paper in France, 
and the Monde Illustre, founded in 1857, takes the next place 
among publications of the same class. There are others less 
general in interest, such as La Vie Illustree, La Vie au 
Grand Air, which last deals exclusively with sports and 
outdoor amusements ; and among ladies' papers, devoted 
mainly to dress, home decoration, etc., is Femina, a 
fortnightly publication elaborately illustrated. 

There is a lingering impression in England — it would be 
hard to say how it originated — that the French have the gift 

of wit, but not of humour. Perhaps the 

Comic and notion arose from this that John Bull's 

Papers. excellent humour takes sometimes a bovine 

turn that is not sufficiently understood abroad 
to be appreciated. On the other hand, French humour must 
have been a good deal relished in England, judging from the 
liberal manner in which the work of the vaudevillistes, the 
librettists of operetta, and other dramatic writers in France 
have been laid under contribution for the British stage during 
the last fifty years or more. In the comic and satirical 
papers of Paris, all of which are illustrated, there is certainly 
no lack of humour. Its quality, however, has this great 



110 France of the French 

drawback : it renders the publications that provide a market 
for it unfit for home use. At any rate, the French mother, 
who has a Hvely sense of her responsibilities, considers such 
papers dangerous to Madeleine and Marguerite, and it must 
be allowed that she ought to know. There is no paper of 
clean humour and wit to be compared to Punch, published 
in France. Those that attempt to be amusing while respecting 
good morals are simply childish. The whole subject is 
intimately related to the gauloiserie — the word is a conve- 
nient one to use — which is deeply embedded in the French 
character. There may be a certain frankness combined with 
it which the psychological analyist can set against the decent 
hypocrisy sometimes to be observed elsewhere ; but decency 
in the expression of thought has its high social value, because, 
whether sincere or not, it is one of the ways in which the 
nobler ideals of life are worked out, or at least respected. 

The history of the comic and satirical Press is inseparable 
from that of the caricaturist's art, which, however, cannot 
be dealt with here. The oldest paper of this class now 
published in France is the Charivari, founded in 1832, and 
whose name was borrowed for Punch's sub-title, nine years 
later. It is ludicrously inappropriate, for it could never 
enter Punch's Britannic soul to raise a charivari. The 
Charivari of Paris is rich in associations, but is much less 
seen than formerly. The Journal Amusant is less circumspect 
and more popular. The Rire, of more recent origin, obtained 
a notorious success by notorious means. It represents the 
decadent style of French satirical journalism as well as the 
decadence of the caricaturist's art. 



CHAPTER VI 

ARCHITECTURE 

In connection with no other of the Fine Arts has French 
genius in the course of centuries done such enduring, such 
instructive, such glorious work, as in architecture. " French 
genius," however, as used here, is merely a convenient 
expression. If we come to analyze the matter we must 
perceive the absurdity of talking about French genius as 
though it were a national force, intellectual or spiritual, 
or both that had blossomed forth in stone, age after age, 
from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, from the Vosges 
to the Atlantic, and with a variety no less striking by its 
contrasts than that offered by nature with its physical 
features and diversified vegetation. In all that is now 
classed with French architecture we have to recognize several 
distinct currents of genius, or shall we call it originality ? 
In different provinces, styles have been developed and brought 
to their highest perfection under influences mainly local 
or provincial, and with much of accident probably too in 
the primary cause or causes which directed the aim towards 
an ideal, indefinable, but of which the mind of the workers 
became more and more conscious as they strove, in the 
tracks of their predecessors, to body it forth. Here we have 
the explanation of the immense, the inexhaustible interest 
of French architecture, and why France of to-day, even 
though Alsace, that treasure-house of art in stone and wood 
be cut off, is of all countries the most bewilderingly rich in 
architectural examples and instructive to the student of 
this branch of the Fine Arts, whose inspired silence contains 
the whole story of mankind. 

The Gothic style is the one that has been chiefly employed 
in ecclesiastical architecture throughout the northern half of 

111 



112 France of the French 

France, Normandy excepted. The buildings anterior to 

the introduction of the pointed arch in the twelfth century 

mostly disappeared before the new style, 

1 , or were so modified — modernized accord- 

Style. 

ing to the ideas of those days — as to lose 
all, or nearly all, of their distinctive Romanesque character. 
Very interesting traces of this origin are, however, to be seen 
here and there, especially in the capitals of columns and in 
towers, which, instead of being pulled down, were patched up. 
There are portions of the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres 
in Paris, which are believed to date from the time of Dagobert. 
Speaking generally, however, the Gothic style wherever it 
became firmly planted, swept away the church buildings 
that were simpler in construction and less florid in ornament. 
Whether the cradle of this pointed, or ogival style, so 
misleadingly and yet suggestively termed " Gothic," was 
Northern France or Germany, is a very debatable point. 
In either case it took firm root in the same century on both 
sides of the Rhine, where it embodied the secular spirit in 
church building rather than the monastic one, and gradually 
identified itself with the ideal of freedom from a too oppressive 
control, both feudal and ecclesiastic. The early blossoming 
of the style is made beautifully manifest in the Church of 
Notre-Dame de Paris, which is not Transition, but a primitive 
Gothic edifice of glorious conception and perfect taste. The 
style, when it reached its complete development, is to be 
studied in such buildings as the cathedrals of Amiens, 
Chartres, Rouen, Rheims, the church of St. Ouen at Rouen — 
more magnificent even than the cathedral — and many other 
noble structures elaborately artistic. No absolute uniformity 
of style must be looked for in most of these buildings ; indeed 
it is usual to find in them very marked divergence of taste, 
directly traceable to the philosophic truth that the human 
mind is constantly moving in its tastes and shifting its 
ideals for better or for worse. The building of these Gothic 
churches was frequently the work of several generations, 




I 




fl 



rt 



1 





CHURCH OF ST. OUEN, ROUEN 



Architecture 113 

and many whose towers were designed to carry spires have 
gone without spires to this day, probably because such 
constancy of purpose as men have was unequal to the strain 
of so prolonged an effort. The disturbance of mind, the 
scarcity of money, and the difficulty of obtaining skilled 
labour which followed in the train of war, must also have 
done much to arrest the execution of vast architectural plans. 
The Hundred Years War doubtless left many more marks 
than have been traced upon the great Gothic churches of 
France, in the sense of interruption of design and effort. 

But finished or unfinished, uniform in taste and inspiration, 
or an agglomeration of idea-crystals precipitated by changing 
currents of artistic fancy during the tumultuous, or contem- 
plative moods of the Middle Ages, what delight, what romance, 
what sensations of beauty, of the idealized fantastic, of 
human struggle, of life and death, of torment and beatitude 
there is in it all ! What conflicts and contrasts of mind are 
revealed in the demon ugliness symbolizing the grosser 
human instincts and the purity and angelic sweetness of 
faces and figures in these gargoyles, corbels, and storied 
archivolts ! The Gothic architecture of France is much 
more living than that of England. It is more human, and 
breaks forth into a far greater variety of expression. It 
has in church architecture, with comparatively few exceptions, 
adhered to the basilican prototype in the semi-circular termina- 
tion of the choir, or chancel, and the imposing effect of the 
high window at the square east end, so characteristic of the 
style in England, is more than counterbalanced by the religious 
and artistic effect of the vaulting that retreats and passes 
away into the mystery and dimness of the apsidal chapels. 

The Norman style, which is merely a variety of the 

Romanesque, is almost confined to Normandy and England, 

to which latter country it was introduced by 

'^^^Stvk"^^" the more enlightened Normans who followed 

the buccaneering horde that accompanied 

William on his expedition to Hastings, so momentous in 

8— (2398) 



114 France of the French 

its consequences. Normandy is rich in examples of it, some 
of which are truly magnificent, as for instance the Church 
of the Holy Trinity at Caen ; but even in this province the 
style fought a losing battle with the Gothic, when the latter 
became well established in Northern France and Germany. 
The architectural pride of Rouen lies in its Gothic, not in 
its Norman, buildings. Indeed, it is a moot question whether 
the Normans were not the originators of the pointed style of 
Northern Europe, they having picked up many fresh ideas 
in their adventurous voyages, among others possibly that 
of the Aiabian pointed arch in Sicily. The chief features 
of the Norman style are simplicity of plan, sobriety, and 
moderation, and the exquisite finish of certain details, notably 
the mouldings of arches and archi volts, the capitals of columns, 
and the elaborate, but tasteful, decoration of towers. More- 
over, the semi-circular apse, which the Anglo-Norman style 
at length abandoned, conveys a sentiment of religious repose 
and solemn peace which appears in church architecture to 
be the very perfection of means applied to an end. The same 
remark appUes equally, if not with greater force, to the 
southern Romanesque, which is a nearly allied growth of art 
grafted upon that most vigorous and fruitful of parent 
stocks, the Roman baisilica. 

The Southern half of France is even a more captivating 

field of exploration to the lover of architecture than the 

Northern half, although its treasures are far 

Architecture of ^^^^ ^^^^S ^^ ^^^^ known. So many of them 
Southern lie in places which travellers in an age that 
France. g^gks for so full a measure of luxury and 
comfort are disposed to describe as " inac- 
cessible," that the reason of this neglect of so much that is 
capable of causing wonder and stirring enthusiasm seems 
pretty obvious. The facilities which automobilism now 
affords to those who cannot urge lack of money as a reason 
for leaving unstudied works of rare art and beauty, should 
cause all the dim passages and devious ways of that vast 




•K--. 



1 



% 



^* 




NORMAN MOULDINGS, CINTHEAUX 



Architecture 115 

museum, Southern France, to be far better known to the 
travelling world than they were some years ago ; but so 
far as we can judge from various signs, newer and more 
rapid means of locomotion do not appear to have a very 
stimulating effect upon the state and temper of mind which 
draw towards such things as old buildings. Moreover, the 
habit of rushing is apt to excite nothing but the most super- 
ficial curiosity, and when this is the mood the tourist might 
just as profitably seek for Ezekiel's '* Valley of Dry Bones," as 
for those monuments of the past slowly raised by men while 
under the influence of aspirations and ideals, the under- 
standing of which is the philosophic motive for studying 
the pages of these books of stone. 

The secret of the immense charm of Southern French 
architecture lies in its originality and variety. Unless 
previously informed, the sentimental wanderer never knows 
what new and delightful architectural surprise the next 
small town, or even village, may have in store for him. 
Although a particular style may be the chosen one of a wide 
district, it may be very variously treated and be used to 
convey very distinct impressions of art and inspiration. 

Take Auvergne for instance. A kind of Romanesque has 

been developed here which is almost a style apart. It might 

be termed the Auvergnat style, for it has 

Churches in its own character, not less than the Norman. 
Auvergne. There are not many examples, and they appear 
to have been all more or less studied from 
Notre Dame du Port at Clermont-Ferrand, which dates 
from the eleventh century. It was quite close to it that 
the open-air council was held which gave the first impetus to 
the great movement of the Crusades. The chief features 
are the impressive and beautiful arrangement of arcades in 
the apse, and the exterior ornamentation of this part of the 
building. In the same town the cathedral church is pure 
Northern Gothic, mainly of the thirteenth ,' century — an 
illustration of those contrasts lying close together which 



116 France of the French 

lend so much to the picturesque, as well as to the architectural 
interest, of the French provinces. 

In P^rigord we meet with Byzantine-Romanesque churches 

of which there seems little doubt that the local prototype 

was the five-domed church of St. Front, at 

Domed P^rigueux, much of whose archaeological 

Churches of interest was lost when the structure was 
Perigord. rebuilt on the original plan. The general 
design is that of St. Mark's at Venice, with 
which it was originally almost contemporaneous, although it 
differs from it in some important details, notably the use of 
the pointed arch in the vaulting beneath the domes — a very 
curious feature considering that the church was finished 
before the middle of the eleventh century. 

There are very few of these Byzantine buildings dating 
from the early Middle Ages, and the impression that they 

The Southern leave is that of a few exotic plants mingled 

Romanesque, with those that appear natural to the soil. 
For in this charming Perigord country, as well as in the 
neighbouring Limousin and in the great plains that stretch 
through Languedoc to the Mediterranean, and through 
Guyenne and Gascony to the Pyrenees and the Bay of Biscay, 
the style that one meets most frequently and which gives 
the greatest pleasure to the traveller in search of the picturesque 
is that Romanesque of Southern France already spoken of. 
It is a style essentially French, and of all the varieties of 
Romanesque that have grown upon and about the semi- 
circular arch, it is that which casts over the soul a thraldom 
at once the sweetest and the most solemn. As a religious style 
in the Christian sense there is none but the Gothic that can 
be weighed in the balance with it. It is far more artistic 
than the Norman-Romanesque, even when it belongs to an 
earlier age, on account of the intensely human interest which 
is almost invariably present in it, and is to be directly referred 
to the figures of men and women in the sculptured details 
and the use to which the human form is put to represent 



Architecture 117 

the beings of Heaven and Hell as they were conceived and 
took shape in the mediaeval imagination. The Norman 
style lacks this warmth of artistic fancy, relying as it does 
mainly upon ingenious combinations of lines and patterns 
to relieve the stern simplicity of the organic design ; which 
it succeeds in doing, but only in a cold and ascetic manner, 
more appropriate to the monastic life than to the needs of 
the people to whom these church carvings were as books 
in those illiterate ages. No doubt the reason of this great 
distinction in the styles was that the northern sculptors 
were making but very timid efforts to represent the human 
form in stone, while those of the south had attained 
considerable proficiency in the art. 

The figures that one sees in the storied capitals, between 
the mouldings of archivolts, mingling with the exterior hne- 
ornaments of the apse, or as bass-reliefs in the elaborately 
composed Last Judgments, etc., with which the tympanum 
over the recessed doorway of a Romanesque church in Southern 
France is so often encrusted, may be frequently out of pro- 
portion and uncouth, throwing into the light of modem 
criticism all the submerging power of the Northern barbaric 
influx upon Roman civilization and culture ; but how 
expressive, how pregnant of meaning, how instinct with 
life they are ! What a curious medley of ideas , too, of heaven 
and earth, of the divinely spiritual and the grossly material ! 
The human interest is in the naivete of such contrasts, inti- 
mately related to a new birth of art, and the passionate 
eagerness of new life to enjoy and to express sensations with 
a freedom of spirit not yet captured and disciplined by 
academic rule. 

These beautiful and ever interesting Romanesque churches 
are scattered all over the Southern provinces of France, 
some in a state of ruin, but many of them wonderfully pre- 
served throughout the stormy ages, and the furious clashing 
of creeds which reddened the South with blood; and they 
are frequently to be found in remote villages where their 



118 France of the French 

magnificence bewilders by its contrast with the poor little 

hives of humanity for whose spiritual needs these elaborately 

sculptured buildings are supposed to exist. As with flowers 

of rare loveliness blooming in the desert places, he who may 

discover them will take greater pleasure from it because of 

the charm that is in such surprises. These out of the way 

churches have the fascination, too, that belongs to beautiful 

islands which the great ocean traffic neglects. 

The Romanesque style includes those fortress-Uke churches 

of Southern France so interesting to the archaeologist, and 

so instructive of the life and manners of the 

jf°^*^^!f^" times in which they were raised. They are a 
Churches. . . "^ . . ^ 

most curious illustration of religious art 

adapting itself to the defensive needs of an age when people 

had to be constantly prepared for deadly surprises by armed 

bands against whom a church offered no sanctuary. Some 

of these churches still show the portcullis chamber forming 

a heavy mass of masonry above the single entrance. The 

windows are very narrow, like loopholes, high above the 

ground, the main walls carried above the roof, and in the 

best specimens embattled and machicolated. The square 

massive tower served as a keep where the final resistance 

was made if the enemy forced an entrance elsewhere. The 

most ancient of these buildings, dating from the ninth and 

tenth centuries, were doubtless designed as places of refuge 

for the inhabitants in the event of sudden attack by marauding 

barbarians, and they are to be looked for chiefly near the 

Mediterranean shore, which was especially exposed to the 

risk of a descent of Saracenic freebooters. Others are of 

later construction, and were brought into existence by the 

long and bloody wars between Catholics and Albigenses 

which desolated Languedoc in the thirteenth century. The 

Cathedral of Albi is a magnificent example of a style which 

may be said to have taken a distinctly original form and 

expression under the influence of public danger. Although 

it was raised quite at the close of the troubled times, the 



Architecture 1 19 

fierce and distrustful spirit of this period was still in the air. 
It is one of the great Romanesque churches of the South, 
but quite different in design and treatment from the simpler 
basihcan form of an earlier age which spread its tendrils 
and blossoms of art even on the outer wall surfaces in the 
confidence of religion and peace. 

In France the Renaissance movement in architecture 

which spread over Western Europe from Italy, shaped for 

itself at once a distinct and original character 

The French ^^ ^^ ^^^ g^js^ i^ England, but with this 

noteworthy difference : whereas in the latter 
country its originality was only shown in domestic architecture 
— buildings like St. Paul's being mere imitations of the 
Italian Renaissance — in France some very remarkable 
churches were raised during the best period of that great 
outflow and turmoil of new ideas which shattered the whole 
thought-system of the Middle Ages. The Church of St. 
Eustache, in Paris, is a typical example. It combines the 
loftiness and elegance of the Gothic vaulting with the revived 
Roman arch, and the neo- classic taste is revealed much more 
in the ornamentation of subordinate parts than in organic 
structure. The style, however, soon lost its distinctive life 
and spirit, and became submerged by the debased classic, 
or Rococo style, that in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries left hideous traces of its passage in the " restora- 
tion " to which many an ancient church was barbarously 
subjected. This deplorable practice of patching up with 
discordant applications of entablatures with twisted columns 
and absurd garlands, without regard to uniformity of style, 
was continued into the nineteenth century, when a strong 
movement in favour of protecting ancient monuments from 
modern vandalism set in. Its most illustrious champion 
was the architect Violet-Leduc, under whose enlightened 
direction many a mediaeval church, as well as some feudal 
fortresses, were preserved from ruin and restored in accordance 
with the original design. 



120- France of the French 

^ The last century also saw a most salutary innovation in 
the establishment by Government of a permanent Committee 

for the preservation of historic monuments. 

The Preservation When a building has been " classed " as an 

of Historic " historic monument," it is safe from the 

Monuments, danger of being " improved " by ignorant 

or utilitarian minded local authorities ; but 
throughout the country there are many churches and other 
edifices rich in archaeological and historic interest which have 
not been so classed, and are therefore exposed to constant 
risk of being mischievously tinkered or put to degrading 
uses. Amazingly rich as France still is in works of mediaeval 
and Renaissance art, time and indifference and miserable 
motives are taking away something of this wealth every 
year. Only a few years ago the old windmill which had 
stood on the hill above the village of Crecy for some six 
centuries, inasmuch as Edward III watched the battle through 
a little opening in the wall, was pulled down by the peasant 
owner in a fit of misguided patriotism, the relations between 
France and England not being quite so cordial then as they 
became soon afterwards. It was not a work of art, but it 
was an historic monument, and the French Government 
might easily have secured its preservation. 

There is no dearth of able architects in France to-day, men 
who thoroughly understand the technique of their business 

and are quite capable of working out any 

Architecture style that may be given them to reproduce ; 

of To-day. but they have no style of their own. This, 

however, is a pretty general state of things. 
Architectural genius has either exhausted itself, or the social 
conditions no longer offer a sufficient stimulus to originality 
in this domain of art. The architect has become very much 
of an artificer. Church architecture is nearly a dead art, 
for the all-sufficient reason, in France at any rate, that 
there are more churches at present than church-goers 
require. Many are falling into ruin because what has 



Architecture 121 

been spared by the rage of war and revolution is perishing 
by indifference. 

Whereas the French country mansion, or chateau — to use 
the word invariably applied in France to a country house of 
exceptional size or pretentiousness — when built in the 
Renaissance style, and especially when ingeniously grafted 
upon a feudal fortress, is an object that fascinates the eye and 
lends to a landscape a picturesque and romantic charm, 
the modern chateau is generally ugly and often vulgar in 
taste. Instead of elegant lightness we get a pompous display 
of ill-assorted elements designed to subjugate by the massive- 
ness which counterfeits grandeur rather than to please, or, 
if not this, an affected elegance and a lightness that strikes 
a false note — in fact cuckoo-clock architecture. As for the 
typical French villas of to-day, they are mostly suggestive 
of elaborately carved and coloured toy-houses. The modern 
suburban villas in the London district are incomparably 
more artistic and tasteful than those which, by their tawdry 
pretentiousness and irritating ugliness, are on the beautiful 
landscape round Paris like aggressive paint-spots with which a 
mischievous hand has bespattered a picture full of luminous 
and tender charm. 



CHAPTER VII 

PAINTERS . 

One must not talk of a French School of Painting to-day 
any more than of a school of tailoring. There is no prevailing 

academic influence, but the tendency is for 
^ ^^A^?^^*^ every artist with originality to make himself 

a new and distinct influence, if he can. The 
utmost latitude for the expression of individuality and 
eccentricity is taken without reference to any recognized 
standards, or respect for any authority. At every Salon 
one gets vivid and curious impressions of art gone mad, but 
happily there are always others of art in its right mind, 
penetrated with the just and true ideal, which is to do 
something that in some strong manner breaks in upon the 
secret harmonies of mind and nature, and brings forth a 
sensation which humanity claims and feels to be true and 
delightful by virtue of something that transcends the mere 
imitation of form and colour. Thus understood, the art of 
painting is something different from mere skill in drawing 
and colouring, and those whose admiration glows before the 
perfect image on canvas of a warming pan, or any useful 
utensil, are on the same mental level with others who suppose 
that a true picture in writing of something commonplace, 
or worse, must necessarily be literature. 

French painting during the last thirty years or more has 
violently reflected the realism and naturalism by which 

literature was invaded in the earlier part 

Modern ^^ ^^le same period, but it should be added 

Currents. , , . ^ . , r 

that this responsiveness to a current oi 

thought opposed to idealism has not been general. Many 

of the younger men were affected by it, being perhaps 

oppressed by the necessity of moving with the times, or 

122 



Painters 123 

more anxious than conscientious in their struggle to reach 
fame by a short and easy way, instead of by the rough and 
rugged mountain path, which is the one to prove the breath 
and staying power of the cHmber. Some of these, however, 
found out in time that they had mistaken charlatanism for 
art. Meanwhile, men who had made their position by their 
artistic gift while resting upon the firm ground of patience, 
laboriousness and honesty, together with respect for the 
experience and teaching of masters whose work in the public 
museums and private collections keeps centuries alive that 
are chronologically dead, pursued their way calmly, and 
were not deserted by the discerning public. They had, 
moreover, no lack of pupils and disciples. The young who 
were feeling their way, if endowed with good judgment, which 
of all intellectual faculties is the most valuable, perceived 
that to attract public attention does not always mean success 
to an artist. A picture that by its plain indecency, gross 
suggestiveness, or daring vulgarity in the choice of subject 
fixes attention upon itself and the painter, or attains the 
same end by the mere defiance that it casts at the academic 
principles and notions which have been evolved from the 
experience of generations, may set the crowd who flock to 
the Salon in search of the sensational, all chattering, without 
inducing anybody to inquire the price that the artist puts 
on his work. People before they hang up fresh wall paper 
examine the pattern and colour critically with a view to 
their own taste and requirements. It is the same with a 
picture, which to the rriultitude of buyers is merely a piece 
of furniture. 

The innovator without art is the scourge of art. We have 
seen a good many such in France while we have been growing 
older under the Republic. The social atmosphere has been 
most favourable to the quick hatching and passage of these 
ephemerce^. They still rise in the air and flutter before the 
eyes of the crowd. The most recent Salons, both of the 
S octets Nationale and of the Artistes Fr unguis, have been rich 



124 France of the French 

in specimens. What these artists strive for most is to compel 
the public to notice them, and to achieve this end all means 
are good. 

The name Impressionism has been given to the most 
characteristic movement in art among French painters 
under the Republic. During the eighties 
Impressionism. -^ gave rise to much heated discussion among 
artists and critics, and supplied a theme that promised never 
to lose its freshness to the babblers about art. It was a 
revolutionary movement, and like many other such in a 
different order of ideas resulted in the worst excesses. A 
sweeping condemnation of Impressionism as something too 
contemptible to be discussed, would imply prejudice and 
perhaps some ignorance. The struggle to express sensations 
in a new way, or to convey impressions received from nature 
in a more direct and realistic manner than has hitherto been 
accomplished by conventional means is not to be condemned 
in itself. Art cannot remain still ; it must be always changing 
in manner and aim, because it depends upon the human mind, 
which is ever restless, ever feeling for fresh ways and means 
of expressing itself. Impressionism was a revolt against 
formalism and academic rule. The influence of great 
landscape painters, notably Corot and Turner, was not 
foreign to it. Their efforts to render effects of light and 
atmosphere, with a certain intense truthfulness, led others 
of inferior breadth of wing to fly higher and attempt the 
impossible. The blinding rays of the sun can only be 
suggested in colour, they cannot be depicted. The inability 
of Impressionists to perceive the boundaries of art led them 
to indulge in the wildest vagaries of colour, with results that 
shocked all sense of moderation and the fitness of things. 
The worst period of this aberration of artistic aim appears 
now to have been left behind, but even in the latest Salons 
there have been pictures which would have been much less 
trying to the eyes if seen through smoked glass. 

Nevertheless, the Impressionist movement is based on 



Painters 125 

certain scientific principles, and those who criticise it without 
understanding these are improperly armed. The solar 
spectrum contains only three pure and ele- 
Impressiom^m. "^^^^^al colours : red, blue, and yellow. Its 
other hues are merely the result of the 
blending of the fundamental colours. Now the method of 
artists from time immemorial has been to blend their colours 
on the palette just as nature apparently blends hers without 
a palette. Manet, although he carried Impressionism by no 
means so far as his followers, became convinced that there 
was something essentially wrong and opposed to nature in 
this manner of going to work. He began to employ pure 
tones on his canvas, and strove to bring his gamut of colours 
as nearly as possible up to that of nature. Instead of working 
in accordance with the academic tradition in a studio lighted 
from the north, he endeavoured to bring as much as possible 
upon his canvas the direct light of the sun. He perceived 
that even in the deepest shadows there was light, either 
direct or reflected, and this also he imitated in painting. 
Others tried to be more scientific than Manet. Perceiving 
that much of the brilliancy of pure tones was lost by blending 
them one with another, they proceeded to place them in 
juxtaposition ; for example, a blue and a yellow side by side, 
in order to give the effect of bright green when seen from a 
certain distance, depending upon peculiarities of vision. 
Furthermore, it was contended by the innovators that the 
eye does not perceive objects clearly outlined, but always 
more or less blurred. The great developer of these principles, 
and one who has been able to apply them with real talent, 
whereas not a few others have brought upon the new 
manifestation of art little besides a revolutionary fury breaking 
forth in painted blood and flames, is M. Claude Monet (1840). 
The misty air of London has had a strong fascination for him, 
perhaps because it helps the theory of indistinctness, and he 
has painted some striking and singular pictures of the Docks, 
Houses of Parliament, etc., which to many give the impression 



126 France of the French 

of delirious Turnerism. His " Cathedral of Rouen " is also 
an amazing performance, really wonderful as a dream- vision. 
It is strange that these Impressionists see things as the 
common of mortals are unable to see them except when 
they are very ill, or asleep. Alfred Sisley (1839-1899), 
another painter of the same school, attained, it must 
be admitted, great skill in what is now known as the 
" division of the tone," that is, placing its constituent colours 
in juxtaposition. 

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), as well as Edouard Manet, 
worked towards Impressionism. Manet, who was a pupil 

of Courbet, marked, however, a much more 

Courbet advanced stage on this road than the gifted 

and Manet, painter of " Le Combat de Cerfs," whose 

connection with the Commune caused him 
to die in exile. Manet himself was no more than an ultra- 
realist, who sought to reproduce striking effects by new 
methods. A strong painter, he worked largely with a 
sensational object, as the choice of his subjects indicates. 
When yet unknown to fame, he made all Paris talk of him 
by a startling picture that was considered too bold a challenge 
to decency. His absinthe drinker and his beer drinker (" Le 
bon Bock ") are well-known pictures, and are typical examples 
of his low-pitched realism. That success of sensationalism 
which attended him obtained for him many imitators, who 
were not, perhaps, sincere admirers. Like the gifted painter, 
Henri Regnault, who was killed at the age of twenty-eight 
in the attempt to break through the German lines at Buzenval, 
and other artists who shared the fate of Paris during the 
siege, Manet in 1870 laid down the palette and the maulstick 
and took up arms. He joined the artillery of the Garde- 
Nationale, and his commanding officer was Meissonier (1811- 
1891). In a sense Meissonier also was a realist, for he 
reproduced every detail with the most scrupulous exactitude, 
but the new realism, with its leaning to vulgarity and its 
poverty of imagination, was something very different. 




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Painters 127 

A realistic painter of mark who reflected the better aspects 
of the movement briefly indicated here, was Bastien -Lepage 

(1848-1884), whose career was closed by 
Bastien-Lepage. death at an early age. His landscapes with 

rustic figures, " Les Foins," " L' Amour au 
Village," etc., are interesting examples of painstaking art 
that has lost its way by over-striving after truth. His rustic 
figures have nothing of the poetic sentiment of Millet's ; 
they are merely details of the un-ideal life of the fields and 
the village as it is visible to all. 

The realistic trend of mind has made itself felt even in 
religious painting, with results that have been generally 

lamentable. The dead Christs, the Cruci- 

Realism in fixions and kindred subjects which modern 

PaiiSing. French artists have attempted to paint, 

with no other object apparently but to show 
that the great masters who had already dealt with them 
were in error, because instead of keeping close to the real 
they persistently idealised, have responded to nothing, not 
even to curiosity, in modern life. The piously disposed are 
satisfied with the traditional treatment, and the sceptics are 
absolutely indifferent to the whole matter. St. Peter may 
have been much more like some fishermen of Brittany or 
Normandy — who will willingly pose for two francs an hour 
or less — than the apostle as he appears in the works of the 
early Italian and Renaissance painters ; but it is only the 
modern artist who considers the question one of interest and 
importance, and he, as a rule, works much more with the 
spirit of an innovator than with the one that can approach 
ideal success in this class of composition — the most difficult 
of all. 

The tendency of realism when applied to religious painting 
is to eliminate religious feeling by the violence done to 
generally accepted ideals. If a painting of a sacred subject 
has not that which harmonizes with religious feeling and 
tradition, there is no reason for its existence. It is not 



128 France of the French 

impossible, however, to reconcile realistic treatment within 
certain limits with an idealistic purpose. We have examples 
of this in works of M. James Tissot (1836-1902), who in 
dealing with the scenes of sacred story draws strong and 
highly interesting effects from his patient studies in Palestine ; 
but he put genuine enthusiasm into his work ; moreover, 
it was the love of the archaic, rather than the realistic in 
the conventional sense, that so influenced his art in this 
direction. 

Many of the modern painters of note in France have tried 
their skill in religious painting. Most of them have failed 

completely ; few have persevered. One who 
William ^j^ persevere, and who cannot be said to have 

failed, was William Bouguereau (1825-1905). 
He worked on the old academic lines quite unaffected by 
modern realism ; but although he often moved the sense of 
beauty, he did not awaken that interest which goes towards 
the bearers of new messages. Mythological subjects had 
for Bouguereau a nearly equal attraction with religious, at 
all events in his earlier period. One of his strongest and 
most characteristic works is the " Funeral of St. Cecilia in 
the Catacombs," which was bought by the State for the 
Luxembourg more than half a century ago. 

Historical painting has become in these days very much 
what the writing of epic poems is in literature. There is so 

little demand for it that the supply is furtive 

Historical and ^^d the quaHty generally feeble. There is 

Decorative small use for it beyond the furnishing of 

Painting. museums, or when united to the decorative 

manner, for the embellishment of large 
wall surfaces of public buildings. Fortunately there is this 
need, otherwise one of the noblest branches of pictorial art 
would be condemned to hopeless decay. 

Those painters who still treat historical subjects, apart 
from a distinctly decorative object, show wisdom in not 
indulging the ambition that imagines glory to need an 



Painters 129 

extensive frame. Of these, the veteran M. J. P. Laurens 
(1838) holds the first place among the living in France. No 

other among his contemporaries has shown 
M. J. P. Laurens, equal power in seizing upon some dramatic 

incident or historical episode of the Middle 
Ages, and presenting it to the modern vision with the passion, 
mentalite, and colour of the period and place to which it 
belongs. The spectator feels that the scene is true, although 
he has to take it largely on faith and trust the artist. Great 
imaginative strength is needed to produce such an impression. 
Few painters have conveyed with an intensity equal to that 
of M. Laurens the sense of tragic horror and of gloomy and 
fanatic passion, and yet with such a sense of measure and 
discreet use of means. The art of this painter consists in 
raising just a corner of the veil that hides the life of a bygone 
age, and giving us a glimpse of some picturesque and 
dramatic reality that tells all we seem to need for our 
instruction and curiosity. His terrific picture, exhibited in the 
Salon of 1872, of Pope Stephen VII solemnly accusing his 
predecessor Formosus, whose corpse he had had exhumed and 
robed in pontifical vestments, placed the high quality of M. 
Laurens' talent as an historical painter beyond all question. 
There is a truly awful energy in the face and figure of this 
accusing pontiff of the darkly passionate tenth century. 
The scene is Dantesque in its vigour as well as in its horror. 
In the pages of modem history this artist has found little 
to stir his imagination, but his picture of the death of the 
unfortunate Due d'Enghien, who was so foully dealt with 
by Napoleon, is well known. In decorative historical 
painting M. Laurens' great work is his contribution to the 
" Life of St. Genevievre " at the Pantheon. 
In the same work on the walls of the Pantheon, as in others 

at the Sorbonne and the Hotel de Ville in Paris, 
d Ch^^^nn ^^^ ^^ studied the vigorous drawing and 

harmonious colouring of the late Puvis de 
Chavannes (1824-1898), a great master of this decorative art. 
9— (2398) 



130 France of the French 

He drew upon vast surfaces with an ease and breadth of 
style truly admirable. A pupil of Ary Scheffer and of 
Couture, he was reared in respect of academic traditions, 
but was no formalist. The realistic movement did not 
influence him ; he was always an idealist, but while he gave 
to his figures an antique grace, he never lost sight of the 
truth that art is only nature that has passed through the 
discriminating processes of the human mind. Early in his 
career mural painting had for him an irresistible attraction 
and the number of his works that decorate the public 
buildings of France shows how far this ambition was realized. 
Among his principal compositions, besides his work at the 
Pantheon are " Concordia et Bellum " (painted before the 
war of 1870), " Ave Picardia nutrix " (Amiens Museum), 
" Le Bois Sacre " at Lyons and " L'Et6 " at the Paris Hotel 
de Ville. His influence upon French decorative art has been 
very great. 

Paul Baudry (1828-1886), whose name has been made so 

familiar to the cosmopolitan public by his mural paintings 

at the Paris Opera House, was an artist 

Paul Baudry. whose figure stands out saliently among those 
who have contributed something of them- 
selves to the aesthetic and intellectual life of France during 
the closing period of the Empire and the opening period of 
the Republic. A strong man in character, as well as by his 
talent, Paul Baudry raised himself from a very humble 
origin — his father was a sabots maker in Vendue — to a very 
eminent one by his own exertions. In the first pair of 
wooden shoes made for him by his father were put gifts not 
so visible as bonbons, but destined to be of more splendid 
significance when unfolded. In 1850 he and Bouguereau 
obtained the Prix de Rome, and the two young artists, whose 
talent afterwards developed such a widely different individu- 
ality, left Paris to pursue their studies together at the Villa 
Medici at the expense of the State. While in Rome, Baudry 
studied especially the works of those masters most renowned 



Painters 131 

for their sense of beaut)^ in woman, such as Raphael, Titian, 
and Corregio. Their influence is to be traced in the French 
painter's works. It was not long after his return from Rome 
that his Salon pictures began to attract attention, notably 
a very fine portrait of the actress Madeleine Brohan. 
Although he had a remarkable gift for portraiture, his 
ambition soared much higher. His mind was bent on large 
compositions and decorative painting. With this purpose 
in view he returned to Rome, especially to study Michael 
Angelo. The breadth of his understanding is revealed here. 
He felt that he needed still wider and higher training. The 
man who is sufficient unto himself never does great work. 
It was thus that Baudry prepared himself for his vast under- 
taking, the decoration of the Opera — that building more huge 
and ingeniously planned than pleasing as an artistic whole, 
which the architect Charles Garnier (1835-1898) was bringing 
to a completion when the war with Prussia fell upon the 
artistic life of France like the blasting breath of a roused 
volcano upon the luxuriant valley. The Opera was not 
opened until 1875. Baudry's decorative compositions, upon 
which he had been working assiduously for eight years, 
outlined with so masterly a hand, so captivatingly fanciful 
and graceful in idea, but so strong in treatment, drew upon 
the artist a storm of admiration. 

An imaginative artist, skilful in grouping and with a fine 
sense of colour, Benjamin Constant (1845-1902) promised 

in the early part of his career to build up 
ConstSiT ^^^ reputation mainly upon his work as an 

historical painter. His " Entrance of 
Mahomet II into Constantinople," exhibited in the Salon 
of 1878, was a revelation of new power in this field. It was 
bought for the museum of Toulouse, and his subsequent 
work, " Entrance of Urban II into Toulouse," a masterly 
revival of a stirring page of local history, is to be seen in the 
Capitol of the southern city, which is so jealous to maintain 
its old reputation as a patroness of the Arts. But the 



132 France of the French 

sumptuous draperies and voluptuous colours of Oriental 
interiors captivated his talent much in middle and later life^ 
and in common with so many other gifted artists the certain 
and substantial rewards of portraiture in return for a 
comparatively small outlay of intellectual effort had for him 
an increasing attraction. He, moreover, excelled in this 
branch of art which provides for future generations so much 
instruction and interest. His portraits of the late Queen 
Victoria and the present Queen of England, when Princess 
of Wales, are among his best. He also entered the Hsts 
with success in decorative art, and among the mural paint- 
ings at the Sorbonne, the Hotel de Ville, and the new 
Opera-Comique in Paris are those by Benjamin Constant. 

The nude has been and is one of the branches of painting 
that French artists have cultivated with the greatest fervour. 

They have often done so ad nauseam. The 
The Nude 

human form, well-developed and proportioned, 

with all the muscles, in the case of the man, large and 

prominent without hjrpertrophic exaggeration, which may 

arise from the constant use of certain muscles at the expense 

of others, is one of the splendid objects of creation ; the 

woman with all her flesh tints and curves, if she approaches 

the symmetry of the ideal type, is one of the most beautiful. 

But no kind of beauty depends so much upon the ideal for 

the sensations that it conveys as that of the human form. 

Whence comes the ideal is one of the mysteries of the mind, 

but that it is not derived wholly from cultivation is certain. 

It is difficult to satisfy, violence is easily done to it, and it 

loathes the commonplace. Now it is the commonplace that 

we generally get in pictures and statues of the nude. As a 

reply to this revolt of public taste, daring efforts have been 

made both in painting and statuary — notably by the 

sculptor Rodin — to give to the nude the life of passion to 

the extent of drawing away the interest from the purely 

aesthetic and placing it, at all events in part, upon the animal 

level. For the present, however, the subject to be dealt 




From a painting by 



Henner 



FABIOLA 



Painters 133 

with is painting. In all the Salons, for a long series of years, 
there has been much nudity and little beauty in the nude. 
The tendency to unmitigated realism and grossness of 
suggestion has gone on increasing. French painters belonging 
to our own times have, however, known how to treat the nude 
so as to leave a pure and strong impression of ideal beauty. 

A magician in this art was the Alsatian, J. J. Henner 

(1829-1905). A painting of Adam and Eve finding the body 

of Abel obtained for him at the age of twenty- 

J. J. Henner. ^^^^ ^^^ p^-^ ^^ Rome. His range of art 

was not wide, but within the limits he marked out for it 
his work was often exquisite. Like some of our modern 
sonneteers, he concentrated all his talent upon the perfection 
of expression and form, leaving a certain vagueness of ideas, 
conveying a most subtle poetic charm, which, however, is 
only exasperating to those who want to have the meaning 
of everything set down for them as plainly as in a butcher's 
bill. He acquired a style and manner so entirely his own that 
any work by him could be distinguished among a multitude 
of other pictures with the greatest ease. The subject that 
he delighted to paint, and which he painted again and again 
without much variation, was a nude female figure against 
a sombre and mysterious background of foliage and above 
it a patch of sky of an intense and deep blue. Those who 
have not noticed the effects of clear-obscure in Southern 
Europe might say that these Henner pictures were not true 
to nature. They are true, but it is not every evening after 
sunset that such contrasted effects of light and shade are to 
be seen even in the south. Henner gave to his nude figures 
an ivory-tinted glow in the midst of deep shadows, and made 
them work upon the imagination with a fascinating charm. 
He knew how to give the true spirit to a pagan fancy while 
keeping it perfectly chaste. But his talent also found a con- 
genial outlet in Christian and Biblical idealism. His nymphs 
in the luminous shade of Southern pines could be changed 
without much difficulty to Magdalens and chaste Susannahs. 



134 France of the French 

Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889), like Henner, was trained 

under the Empire, and was also one of the most successful 

painters of the nude during the period covered 

Cabaner ^^ ^^^ ^^^^'^ ^^^^- ^^^ " ^^^^^ ^^ Venus," 
bought by the State for the Luxembourg 

Museum, a work of remarkable strength and beauty, is well 

known to the public interested in art. He was less successful 

in his mural paintings of a religious and historical order, as for 

example his " Life of St. Louis " at the Pantheon, which is 

much below the height of the subject ; but his allegories of 

the months at the Hotel de Ville are of a better inspiration. 

M. Jules Lefebvre, who was born in 1836, is one of the 
veterans among contemporary painters. He had a much- 
admired picture in the Salon des Artistes 
L^*f"b^^^^ Frangais of 1908. He has not made the 
nude his exclusive study, but he has given 
to it his best efforts, and it is by his treatment of the female 
form and flesh tints that he is chiefly known. In this work 
he has generally brought marked refinement and idealism 
to bear, but there are those who perceive too much '' elegance" 
in this, and prefer his earlier style, in which an exuberant 
animal beauty is depicted without any softening of purpose 
or mitigation of meaning. Such an example of the nude 
was the splendid, but sensual, " Femme au Divan Rouge," 
exhibited in 1868. M. Lefebvre was attracted by the story 
of Lady Godiva, and he treated it with considerable hardihood. 
The picture is in the Museum of Amiens. His mural paint- 
ings at the Hotel de Ville in Paris are more pleasing than 
his panel of " St. Denis Preaching " at the Pantheon. 

Jean Leon Gerome (1824-1904) was perhaps more than any 

other painter influenced by the light thrown upon antique 

pictorial art by the excavations at Pompeii. 

J. L. Ger6me. For this reason he has been styled a neo- 

Pompeiian. The antique inspiration is easily 

recognized in that picture which of all his works is the best 

known to the public on account of its long stay at the 



Painters 135 

Luxembourg Museum, " Combat de Coqs," in which we have 
two young Greeks, a youth and a girl, watching a cock fight. 
The work was first exhibited in 1847, and it was perceived 
at once to be something strong, fresh, and studiously archaic. 
In the years that followed Gerome painted numerous subjects 
taken from ancient history and mythology, such as the 
" Century of Augustus " (Amiens Museum), " Bacchus and 
Love Drunk " (Bordeaux Museum). Then later history and 
even modern life began to use his talent. Thus he painted a 
*' Death of Marshal Ney," and ''Sortie de bal Masqu6," 
a duel between masqueraders in the quiet snow, away from 
the heated room and in the presence of the woman, the cause 
of the fatal quarrel, all dressed in the frippery of the masked 
ball. It would not be easy to name a picture with three 
figures more poignantly dramatic. Gerome was a pupil of 
Delaroche, whom he accompanied on a sentimented and 
artistic journey in Italy. Although he painted much under 
the Republic, his best work was done under the Empire. As 
he grew older, his style became harder and drier, and his 
imaginative faculty weakened. 

Even more than Gerome, Elie Delaunay (1828-1891) 

belonged to the Empire, although he lived far into the new 

epoch. His " Peste de Rome," which is in 

E. Delaunay. ^^^ Louvre, is an admirable painting, full 
of power and the feeling of terror. Most of his pictures are 
mythological, allegorical, or religious. He held fast to the 
academic traditions in which he was nurtured, and the new 
movements in art passed over him like waves over a rock. 
He was working at the decoration of the Pantheon — where 
his " St. Genevievre exhorting the inhabitants to resistance," 
may be studied — when overtaken by death. In addition to 
his other claims to distinction, he ranks among the best 
modern portrait painters. 

As a painter of myths, Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) had 
few rivals who could approach him. A solitary man, with 
a horror of crowds and especially of the spirit of coteries, he 



136 France of the French 

passed his life struggling to fix on canvas the pictures of 
a teeming imagination that had long fed upon the poetic 

dreams and fancies of the antique mind, 
Gustave gracefully beautiful and mysteriously awful. 

He outstayed the interest of the public 
in such subjects as " (Edipus and the Sphinx," " Hercules 
killing the Hydra," "Prometheus," and ''Galatea"; but 
the work that he has done lives, and the taste for this classicism 
in painting may rise again, although at present there is no 
sign that it will. One of Moreau's most vigorous pictures 
is that of Europa on the back of the bull, familiar to multi- 
tudes from all lands who have passed through the Luxembourg 
Museum. 

M. L^on Bonnat is one of those modern painters who have 
not confined their efforts to any particular field or direction in 

art, but whose ambition, or prudence, has 
B n r ^^^ them into various pastures. So many 

are like him in this respect that it is becoming 
increasingly difficult to classify painters under such headings 
as " History," " The Nude," " Genre," " Portraiture," etc. 
And yet there never was a time like ours when the intensity 
of competition rendered success so dependent upon the 
concentration of the faculties upon a small segment of man's 
intellectual horizon. M. Bonnat has for many years ranked 
with the leading portrait painters of France. But he is not 
only a portrait painter ; he has done much work of a higher 
order in his time — historical, decorative, religious, etc. His 
artistic life has already covered a long period. His early 
days were spent at Bayonne, where he was born in 1834, ^^^ 
this probably explains why his first master was the Spanish 
painter Madrazo. Although he passed afterwards into the 
studio of Leon Cogniet, his manner has always retained 
something of that asperity as well as that voluptuous sense 
of colour which is characteristic of the Spanish School. In 
his youth he spent much time at Rome, and the picturesque- 
ness of Italian life and surroundings inspired not a few of his 







Photo by 



Pierre Petit 



M. BONNAT 



H. 



Painters 137 

earlier pictures. Oriental and religious subjects also attracted 
him. In 1874 he painted a ** Christ on the Cross " for the 
Palais de Justice, but this was subsequently removed from 
its original place, when the practice of raising the hand 
towards this Christian emblem, equivalent to " kissing the 
Book " in England, was finally abolished in the French 
courts, and the oath was stripped of all reUgious meaning. 
Later his rather startling " Job " appeared in the Salon, 
and was afterwards given a place at the Luxembourg. This 
was a masterly painting as painting, but it suggested no 
ideas that furnished a reason for its production ; it makes 
one think rather of some poor old wreck of a chiffonnier, 
whose shrivelled nakedness was reproduced by M. Bonnat 
with scrupulous realism. This artist has also essayed the 
decorative style ("St. Denis " at the Pantheon and the 
" Genius of Arts " at the Hotel de Ville), but his touch is too 
heavy for it. His massive manner, however, mates well with 
portraiture, and some of the most striking and lifelike 
portraits that have appeared in the Salons of the last twenty 
years have been signed by him. One of the best of these is 
that of Cardinal Lavigerie (1825-1892). The head is wonder- 
fully expressive of the vigorous and practical character of the 
Primate of Africa, and the scarlet cassock gave opportunities 
for a brilliant effect of colour which M. Bonnat was not one 
to miss. The picture was bought for the Luxembourg. 
This artist is a valiant worker, notwithstanding his age. 
He exhibited two portraits in the Salon des Artistes Fran^ais, 
1908. 

Almost contemporaneous with M. Bonnat, M. Carolus 
Duran, who was bom in 1838, has likewise found in 

portraiture the more solid rewards of an 
^Duran^"^ artistic career, unless it be agreed that a 

substantial and congenial appointment under 
Government is the most solid of all. Since the commence- 
ment of 1905, M. Carolus Duran has been director of the 
French Academy at Rome, installed like a Prince of Art at 



138 France of the French 

the Villa Medici (or M^dicis, as the French with their mania 
of Gallicising the world's orthography prefer to spell it). 
What more could be desired, unless it were a slice of Mont- 
martre near at hand to give the savour of Paris when the need 
of it was felt ? He became known in 1866 by a very large 
Salon picture, " L'Assasin6 " — a vigorous page of old Roman 
manners on canvas, and which has long been in the museum 
of his native town, Lille. It was his portraits, however, that 
caused his name to be repeated in all the salons, and thus he 
was compelled to be a portrait painter. It could not have 
been an unpleasant occupation, inasmuch as the most charm- 
ing and vivacious women got the idea into their heads that 
no one could do justice to their beauty like Carolus Duran. 
He has not only the power of making the most of what nature 
has given to the sitter, while retaining the likeness ; he 
has a rare cunning in the use of colour. Nevertheless, in the 
opinion of some his effects of colour in draperies are too 
arrogant. He was influenced by Velasquez, whom he studied 
in Spain. 

M. Aime Morot, who was born in 1850, is in the front rank 
of painters who have found their way under the Republic. 

He is one of those who cannot be classified, for 
M. Aim6 Morot. he has been by turns a religious, an historical, 

and a military painter. He has also excelled 
in portraiture. The most masterly work he has yet produced 
is by general consent allowed to be " Reischoffen," which 
may be seen in the museum of Versailles. He depicts with 
remarkable spirit and feeling of intense action the historical 
charge of the cuirassiers, which MacMahon ordered to cover 
the retreat when the day at Woerth, or Reischoffen, was 
lost by the French. This charge was one of the glorious 
exploits of French cavalry. Its hopelessness, regarded as 
an offensive movement, made it the more heroic. It was a 
noble sacrifice of life to stem the tide of pursuit. This 
episode of 1870 has been depicted by no other artist with 
equal strength. 



Painters 139 

An artist with much diversity of talent and power, but 
who of late years has been almost absorbed by portraiture — 
so apt to prove the grave of a painter's imagin- 
ameng. ^^^^^^ ^y ^j^^ facile and tempting rewards that 
it offers to the man who has made a name, while it rarely helps 
one to rise — is M. Frangois Flameng, who was born in 1856. 
He has great power over the picturesque, and also the rarer 
faculty of entering into the spirit of the past. Thus he has 
been able to produce some historical works full of a living 
interest, as for example his " Appel des Girondins " and " Les 
Vainqueurs de la Bastille." If his talent as a colourist were 
equal to his gift of composition, he would have made a greater 
name. He has attained signal success in the decorative 
style, notably in his mural paintings at the Sorbonne and 
the Opera-Comique. 

One of the younger painters of the day among those who 

have attained a wide reputation, is M. Georges Rochegrosse, 

who was born in 1859. Endowed with true 

RJch^grolse. originality and a marked disposition to 
produce coups de theatre in painting, his Salon 
picture of 1882 of " Vitellius dragged through the Streets 
of Rome " was for some weeks the chief thing talked about 
by the art-gossips of Paris. Loathsome as the almost naked 
figure of the debauched and swinish Emperor was, his 
hopeless terror was depicted with a fearful realism that 
fascinated ; moreover, an intense impression of life and truth 
was conveyed by all the surging street mob of soldiers and 
idlers of that outflow of brutish passion, such as the history 
of the frequent tumults of decadent Rome throws into 
sanguinary and darkly dramatic relief. This picture is now 
in the Sens museum. The artist, encouraged by his success, 
pursued his studies of antiquity, but in much of his work 
the effort to produce tremendous and extraordinary effects 
of tragedy and horror is too obvious. This criticism, how- 
ever, does not apply to " La Curee " (1889), which depicts 
the death of Julius Caesar. The sudden rush of the small, 



140 France of the French 

compact band of conspirators, each with one arm out- 
stretched and hand grasping the knife which a moment 
later will drip with blood, is rendered with a tragic and 
realistic strength of which there are not many examples in 
contemporary art. The idea of composition is submerged 
by the sense of reality. Surely this is the end and aim of all 
art in historic painting, provided that a certain nobleness, 
even the nobleness of a displaced ideal, be given to the reality. 
But M. Rochegrosse has not in his subsequent work risen 
to the expectations that were founded upon this and other 
of his earlier paintings. His imagination has become more 
and more fixed upon the sensuous and archaic details of anti- 
quity, especially Asiatic, a temper of mind which if not resisted 
leads on to the atrophy of the inventive faculty. In drawing 
the remote and obscure past from its grave, he is less 
concerned now with its life than with its clothes. The 
ornaments that he puts upon the corpse may be those that 
were really worn, but this is not breathing fresh life into the 
body. Looking at various signs in different fields of 
intellectual activity, one asks if there is anything in the 
social atmosphere of these days that prevents the most 
promising talent from realizing its maturity. 

A talented and versatile painter — so versatile that it is 
impossible to classify him, was Charles Cazin (1841-1901). 

Much of his life was spent in various countries, 
Cazin^ including England, in his early days. He 

became known before the close of the Empire 
as a painter of Biblical subjects, simple in method but strong 
in effect. He discovered that in order to convey just 
impressions of the landscape of Palestine, within the limits 
required for his groups , it was not necessary to travel farther 
than the dunes on the Western and Northern coasts of France. 
His " Ishmael and Hagar " (Luxembourg Museum) may be 
regarded as the finest example of his work in this order of 
ideas. In course of time he left Biblical subjects for those of 
ancient Greece, and produced such paintings as the " House 



Painters 141 

of Socrates." Then he struck what was, perhaps , the best and 
truest note of his talent by giving his mind to landscape 
painting. Into this work he threw a deep poetic feeling. 
" Cazin's hour " is known to mean in France the time 
when the sun, about to set, gilds the mist that rises as the 
temperature falls and the struggle with night begins. 

M. Dagnan-Bouveret (1852), whose realistic treatment of 
rustic and other subjects, much in the manner of Bastien- 

Lepage, brought him into notice in the early 
^BouvSeT" eighties, and whose style afterwards acquired 

greater breadth and promised much, has of 
late years given the best of his art to portraiture. A work 
remarkable for observation and truth is " Le Pain Beni," 
bought in 1886 for the Luxembourg. There was a time 
when the painter was drawn to Bibhcal subjects, and during 
this period he produced one of his most admired paintings, 
" The Pilgrims of Emmaus." 

M. Alfred Roll (1847) ^^ made himself chiefly remarkable 
by his vigorous paintings of outdoor hfe, and in conveying 

very just and striking impressions of labour 

in full activity. A workshop, or wharf, 
crowded with busy life interests some people much more than 
an idyllic scene ; they perceive a grandeur in human toil 
and violent exertion, while others remain unmoved by such 
subjects and marvel at an artist's wasted effort upon the 
commonplace. The former are generally delighted with all 
representations of popular gatherings and spectacles 
intensely reflecting life and reality. For such M. Roll has 
worked more successfully than any living French artist. 
Among his best works of this order are " Le Chantier de 
Suresnes, 1885," " La Fete du 14 Juillet '' (in the museum 
of the Paris Hotel de Ville), " Centenaire de 1889 " (Museum 
of Versailles). But M. Roll has not confined himself within 
the limits of such subjects. His picture of a Normandy 
woman carrying a pail of milk from the cow, " Manda 
Lame trie, Fermiere," which was bought for the Luxembourg, 



142 France of the French 

conveys with singular force the feeling of rusticity that has 
not, however, been idealized. M. Roll can delight the eye 
with the charm of freshness, greenness, and healthy life, but 
he says nothing to the soul in his treatment of rustic figures, 
in which matter an abyss separates him from the painter 
of the " Angelus " and the " Gleaners." He is a realistic 
artist having something of the manner and very much of 
the disposition of Manet. 

Alphonse de Neuville (1836-1885) was one of the best 

painters of military subjects under the Empire, and during the 

first ten years of the Republic his precedence 

Alphonse ^^ ^j^-g j^j-aj^d^ of art was not questioned. The 

de Neuville. . , ^ ^ . . . . 

war with Germany appeared to inspire mm ; 

indeed, for years after the disasters to France in 1870-1871 
there was enough sentiment of the battle-field in the air to offer 
exceptional opportunities to any painter capable of composing 
a spirited battle piece with a sufficient sense of the recently 
actual. De Neuville rose at once to the situation with 
" Les Dernieres Cartouches " (his most vigorous and his 
best known painting), " Le Cimetiere de Saint- Privat/' 
and " Le Bourget." Prior to 1870 he had been much 
absorbed by illustrating, but the terrible realities of war 
drew from a reserve of power in him a succession of 
pictures as remarkable for their talent as for their rapid 
production. 

Since the death of Alphonse de Neuville and Meissonier, 
M. Edouard Detaille, who was born in 1848, has without 

dispute taken the first place among French 
M. E. Detaille. military painters. Indeed, long before his 

death, in 1891, Meissonier had practically 
retired from the field. M. Detaille was one of Meissonier's 
pupils, and although the work of the two men differs widely, 
it is easy to perceive the influence of the elder upon the 
younger. M. Detaille is a painter rather of the episodes of 
war than of battle pieces. He has rarely attempted to 
depict masses of men in action, although he is quite capable 




Photo by 



Reutlinger 



M. DETAILLE 



Painters 143 

of vast compositions, in illustration of which we have his 
" Reception of the Troops in 1806," an historical work 
showing much animation and breadth of style. The painting 
is at the Hotel de Ville in Paris. De Neuville always felt 
sure of himself in realizing on canvas the fury of battle ; 
M. Detaille appears to have placed much less confidence in 
this power in himself. Nevertheless, his " Charge of the 
Cuirassiers at Morsbronne " is a very spirited work. But 
his peculiar strength is better seen in the " Faron Division 
Defending Champigny," where the men are shown busily at 
work loopholing walls, raising defences with everything that 
came to hand ; in fact, hastily preparing for the expected 
onslaught of Germans — which did not fail to come. Such 
pictures, when studied in every detail, as those of M. Detaille 
are, give a more realistic impression of war than others which 
show the struggle of opposing masses of all arms in the open 
country. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that war has 
lost much of its old picturesqueness, if such an expression 
may be used here. The furious melees of cavalry that speak 
so much more to the imagination than infantry and artillery 
spread over vast surfaces working out mathematical problems 
like machines, answering the telegraph and telephone, can 
now be only minor episodes of battle. M. Detaille learnt 
early from Meissonier not to put over much into a military 
picture, and he was thus in advance of the changes that were 
to come in the science of war. This artist has a weakness 
for putting allegorical figures into paintings otherwise marked 
by powerful realism. Thus in his latest Salon picture (1908), 
" Le Chant du Depart," he places in front of the young 
soldiers who have commenced the march that may be to 
death, a figure of Victory on a winged horse. Such spectral 
allegorical figures strike a jarring note. 

Other artists of conspicuous talent among military painters, 
including those who have given their attention especially to 
naval battles, are M. A. Binet (1854-1897), whose pictures 
of the siege of Paris are at the Hotel de Ville ; M. Fouqueray, 



144 France of the French 

whose " Battle of Trafalgar " conveys an intense impression 
of deadly energy ; and M. Orange. 

Prominent among living painters of rustic life, distinct 
from landscape, is M. L^on Lhermitte (1844) and M. Henri 

LeroUe (1848). The former is a native of 
Rustic Life. Champagne, which is not a picturesque part 

of France, but he, nevertheless, found 
inspiration there for some of his earlier works. His picture 
of reapers receiving their wages (bought by the State for the 
Luxembourg in 1882) brought him prominently into notice. 
Other pictures in the same order of ideas followed, such as 
"The Vintage" and "Death and the Woodman." The 
latter is in the Amiens Museum. A draughtsman of remark- 
able vigour and truth, M. Lhermitte is less successful as a 
colourist. His group of harvesters in the Salon (Societe 
Nationale) of 1908, should rank with his best work. 

M. Lerolle has also a full and joyous sympathy with out- 
door life, and he has painted many rustic scenes, idyllic in 
sentiment and realistic in treatment. One of his best works, 
" Dans la Campagne," is in the Luxembourg Museum. 
There is much in the work of M. Albert Besnard that places 
him in this category of painters, although the imaginative 
has had at least as much attraction for him as the real. But 
whether he paints a milkmaid or a nymph, he throws a 
charm into the figure which is closely related to his delicate 
art as a colourist. The mairie of the first arrondissement in 
Paris is decorated with three of his finest compositions, 
" Le Matin de la Vie," " Le Midi," and " Le Soir." 

However opinion may differ on the question whether 
modem French art has advanced or fallen back in some 

important respects, its achievements in 
Landscape landscape and rustic figure painting have 
Figures. been too remarkable for any doubt to be 

possible as to the progress it has made in this 
direction. Without going back to Millet and Corot, who 
rank with the most illustrious of all interpreters of patur^ 



Painters 145 

on canvas, and passing over several other gifted landscape 
painters, there has been no lack of richly-endowed artists 
who, belonging to the Republic either wholly or in part, 
have brought to bear upon this branch of art a strong indi- 
viduality and a pure love of nature which have gone far 
to redeem grosser ambition in other directions, and to uphold 
the reputation of French painters in the estimation of the 
world. In the early days of the Republic, veteran landscape 
painters of the Monarchy and Empire, such as Harpignies, 
FleuryChenu, Lansyer, Lambinet, Sege, Busson,and Hanoteau 
were still busy with the brush ; some, like Harpignies, giving 
much attention to water colour, and excelling in this most 
delicate method of seizing and fixing the spiritual moods of 
nature. Nor must Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) be overlooked, 
for although it is as a painter of horses and cattle that her 
fame has its most solid foundation, she has the feeling of 
the landscape painter also. 

As a painter of rustic figures combined with landscape, 
Jules Breton, who was born in 1828 and who came to Paris 
to seek his fortune at the tumultuous birth of the Republic 
of 1848, reached the summit of his success under the Third 
Republic, and there are not many zealous watchers of 
contemporary art who have not seen some of his pictures in 
the Salon. Realists of the day accuse him of having idealised 
rustic life. It may be granted that he did this to some 
extent, but never to the degree of offending possible truth. 
The sordid and grossly material aspects of peasant life 
repelled him, and he would certainly not have made a 
successful illustrator of Zola's " La Terre." In choosing his 
subjects he looked for beauty in reality, suggesting, if not 
realizing, ideal beauty. He put his mind into his work, 
thus producing delightful effects of sentiment. He was not 
a photographer, but an artist of line sensibilities capable of 
discerning what sensations of nature were worth preserving 
upon canvas and those that were not. Among other qualities 
in his work is an exquisite sense of the harmony of colour. 

lo— («398) 



146 France of the French 

Among his well-known paintings are " The Return of the 
Harvesters " and the " Blessing of the Corn," bought for the 
Luxembourg Museum. 

Emile Breton (1823-1902), although of a more Hmited 
artistic range than his brother Jules, was nevertheless a 
painter who possessed the secret of putting an irresistible 
charm into his work. The effects of nature which had for 
him a peculiar attraction, and which he rendered with much 
poetic feehng, were those of winter and late autumn, such 
as snow-clad houses and bare trees in the quiet moonlight, 
dreary fields and naked hedges touched with the weak glow 
of rainy or snowy sunsets. 

Madame Demont-Breton, daughter of M. Jules Breton, is also 
a talented painter of rustic figures and landscapes, but especially 
successful in depicting sea-shore effects with fisher-folk. 

French painters are many, and this book has to cover much 
and various ground. Therefore, with all the wish to be just, 
it is impossible not to omit the mention here of numerous 
artists of merit and originality. To the landscape and rustic 
figure painters already spoken of, the following names may 
well be added, which are those of exhibitors whose works in 
the two Salons of igo8 were very noticeable in connection 
with this ever delightful branch of the Fine Arts : A. G. 
Rigolot (Effect of autumnal evening), G. Costeau (Provence : 
effect of sunrise on water, hills, and pines), A. Dagneau, A. 
Buffet, L. Cable (Effect of mist on woods and water), G. P. 
Di6terle (Landscape, with figures and sheep), A. Girard 
(Woodland effect, autumn), A. Delaistre (Sea-shore at low 
water under cliff), Marie Duhem (Sunset and moonlight with 
figures), J. E. Crochet, and Mile. V. Pepe (Nocturn : landscape 
with figures). 

M. Eugene Carriere (1849-1906), whose active and fruitful 
Interiors ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ recently extinguished, was a gifted 

Portraiture, and original artist. His best talent was 

®*^' shown in familiar subjects, such as "La 

Famille," ** La Maternite " (both at the Luxembourg). 



Painters 147 

As a painter of home life, he does not fail to touch upon true 
notes of feeling. He also painted admirable portraits of 
Alphonse Daudet, and others. 

M. Emile Friant (1863) is also well to the front as a painter 
of interiors and homely subjects. " La Legon du Cure " 
(Luxembourg) is an example of his work. M. Raffaelli 
(1850) and M. A. Renoir are both painters of the Impressionist 
school, with a strong taste for genre subjects of that picturesque 
vulgarity which appealed so strongly to the Flemish painters. 
This in course of time throws an interesting although not 
flattering light on bygone manners. Such a work is M. 
Renoir's " Le Moulin de la Galette " (Luxembourg). M. 
Henri Gervex (1852) is a painter of varied powers who appears 
to have settled down to portraiture. His picture of a woman 
clothed only v/ith a small black mask over the upper part 
of the face gave rise to much scandal at the time of its exhi- 
bition in the Salon, and law-court incidents several years 
afterwards. It was suspected of being a portrait, and the 
tongues of gossips in Paris were rife as to the identity of the 
poseuse, who was said to be " in society." 

Among the younger portrait painters of note is M. M. 
Baschet. His portrait of M. Henri Rochefort was one of the 
most striking of the Salon pictures of this class in 1908. 

Women painters are now numerous in France. Those 

with whose names the public is most familiar are Mile. Louise 

Abbema (1855), who has had much success 

Painters ^^ portraiture, and Mme. Madeleine Lemaire 

(1845), who for many years has held the 

leading place in France among flower painters. 

A lady whose talent has shone forth conspicuously of late 
in a department of art that women have rarely entered, 
namely, allegorical and decorative painting, is Mile. C. H. Dufau. 
Her decorative pieces ordered by the State and illustrating 
''Astronomy," " Mathematics," "Radio-activity," and " Mag- 
netism," exhibited in the Salon des Artistes Frangais, 1908, 
show great imaginative power and a fine sense of colour. 



CHAPTER VIII 

SCULPTORS 

In modern sculpture, or statuary — which is, perhaps, the 
better word — French artists have ranked with the first in 

Europe. The word " modern " is here 
Past and intended to mean from the beginning of the 
Present. Renaissance to the present time. If we 

were to go farther back and speak of the 
Middle Ages, it would be difficult indeed not to give the 
sculptors both in stone and wood of what is now called France 
the first place in Europe. Where else was church architecture 
embellished with such living forms in lifeless matter of beings 
divine, holy, human, and diabolic ? But the Renaissance 
brought much Italian influence into France. The Medici — 
those of them who became French by marriage — contributed 
greatly to this movement. The competition of Italian artists 
became severe, and French sculptors had to move with the 
times or disappear. They preferred to move ; they culti- 
vated the neo-classic style and Gothic statuary with its 
uncouth sense of the plastic, but marvellous power of 
expression, went the way of all that gets worn out in the 
fullness of time. Philibert Delorme, the architect of the 
TuUeries, and his contemporary Jean Goujon, the sculptor, 
whose work may be studied in the Fontaine des Innocents 
and in various details of the Old Louvre, are examples of 
the ease and brilliancy with which Frenchmen adapted 
themselves to the new taste in the sixteenth century. 

But what has to be dealt with here is French sculpture of 
the present day. It may be stated without hesitation that it 

has not lost anything of the high place that 
Aid to Art -^ ^^^ ^^j^g ^^^ ^^ ^^le opinion of the critical 

public throughout the world. This enviable 
position is largely due to the enlightened encouragement and 

148 



Sculptors 149 

material assistance given to the sculptor in France. If he had 
been thrown mainly upon private patronage for the hire of 
which the labourer is worthy, his art would have perished, or 
crawled feebly along in such manner as to give his country 
small cause for pride ; but France, whether Monarchical, 
Imperial, or Republican, has always had a full and generous 
sense of what is due to art as an educator of the people, and 
as the most delicate and refined protest of the human mind 
against the merely animal life of man. Some ridicule has 
in these later days been cast upon what has been regarded 
as a statue-raising mania in France. It is shallow ridicule, 
for every statue that is raised in a public place gives work 
to a sculptor and helps to stimulate ambition in this noble 
sphere of art. The selection of individuals so honoured 
might sometimes be determined by higher motives and 
considerations, but an excess of art that is not in the service 
of vice is the last thing that any country need fear. Too 
many statues in squares and street carrefours may be an 
encumbrance, but this is better than a dearth of them. Time 
may be entrusted with the work of removing those that may 
get too much in the way, or when new ideas can no longer 
tolerate them ; meanwhile, they serve a good purpose. 

The ugliness of figures in modern clothes is no reason why 
politicians and other " worthies " — even if they were chiefly 

worthy of being hanged — should not have 
^M^^^ *" their effigies set up in marble and bronze, 
Clothing. for art derives a stimulus from the public 

taste for such things. Illustrious men of 
antiquity, distrustful perhaps of clothing and its fashions, 
preferred sometimes to be represented by the sculptor in 
unrobed nature for the admiration of contemporaries and 
posterity, but although a certain movement on the stage 
and in literature is working wonders in the direction of what 
has been termed " Corinthianism," those now living are not 
likely to cherish the ambition that their likeness will some 
day be raised on a pedestal in the costume of Apollo. The 



150 France of the French 

sculptor, who is largely dependent upon commissions from 
the State, municipalities, and committees, cannot hope to get 
away from frock-coats and trousers. His art largely consists 
of making the modern man look well in modern garments. It 
is hard to deny that the modern man, aesthetically, cuts a very 
poor figure on a pedestal, and is made rather grotesque when, 
as is so often the case, allegorical figures exhibiting in freedom 
all the lines of nature are grouped around him. 

Although the statuary's art was very prolific during the 
first twenty years of the Republic, and highly gifted artists 
who are now dead, together with others who are living, were 
then in the full vigour of their creative power, signs of a 
decreasing public interest in statuary were noticed. The 
cause of this was supposed to be in the too frequent repetition 
of the same ideas, or the lack of power to invest them with 
a new life. It must be allowed that it is very difficult for 
a sculptor to show striking originality in the treatment of a 
Diana, a bacchant, a nymph, or a faun — figures that have 
been multitudinously repeated more or less after the antique 
models since the beginning of the Renaissance. But such 
statues have abounded in every Salon within the memory 
of the living, as they certainly did before. On the other 
hand, subjects immediately related to modern life and its 
needs afford little scope for the imagination. Let it be 
remembered that the sculptor in treating the commonplace 
has not the painter's resources to help him. He cannot 
pass off a weak or useless idea as something of worth by the 
aid of colour. The sense of colour is quite distinct from that 
of form. It has led many a painter to success who without 
it would have made but little way in life. The sculptor to be 
really original needs such a sense of form and life in form as 
amounts to genius. If he has not this " divine afflatus," 
he is a mere imitator of academic models. The prodigious 
difficulties with which the modern sculptor has to contend 
should therefore be borne well in mind. When one comes 
to a just comprehension of what tlie§§ difficulties are, then 



Sculptors 151 

the work of some sculptors of our own times appears truly 
admirable. 

Dalou (1838-1902) who, like Courbet the painter, got into 
trouble by his misplaced sympathy with the Commune — 
merely arising from the enthusiasm of the 
^ °^* artistic temperament, that is so apt to make 

a mental muddle of politics — and who for a while was a 
proscript, was, nevertheless, the sculptor of the " Triumph 
of the Republic " in the Place de la Nation and of the 
Gambetta monument, touched by the shadows of the Louvre 
and raised in the midst of associations somewhat out of 
harmony with the eloquent tribune's ideas. This last is a 
rather theatrical piece of work, but a simple statue would 
not have given satisfaction to the nation, and considering 
his difficulties, Dalou did all that could have been expected of 
him. It is a bad service, however, to a man, great though he be, 
to give him such an elaborate monument in which various 
figures are introduced, for independently of the question of taste, 
the time will surely come when the public will wish it out of 
the way, if it takes up too much room in a city. Posterity 
is a ruthless destroyer of the magnifying glass through which 
a political celebrity is seen by his friends and partisans. 

Falguiere (1832-1900) was also a sculptor of power and 
versatility, but in his elaborate pieces the effect was some- 
times marred by the lack of antique simplicity, 
agui re. There was a tendency to overcrowd with 

figures, and produce in statuary suggestions of the stage 
apotheosis. Here, however, we touch upon the weak side 
of French art. As time goes on, it becomes less observable. 
Among Falguiere's most successful works are his statues of 
Balzac, Diana, and the " Dancer." 

Another sculptor who left the mark of his strong individu- 
ality upon modern statuary was Barrias (1841-1905). He 

completes the trio of the lately dead of whom 
Ba,rriEs 

the Republic has the best reason to be proud. 

Xn grouping his figures, he had the sense of a. grea^t mastej 



152 France of the French 

of his art, and he possessed also in a high degree the 
power of expressing noble sentiments. His " Premieres 
Funerailles " — the first burial solemnity that man was called 
upon to perform — a work that might otherwise be described 
as the funeral of Abel, is by its grandeur of conception and 
sentiment one of the finest examples of modern French 
sculpture. Another admirable work by the same artist is 
his " Defence of Paris," a composition that tells its story 
with strength and eloquence. 

No sculptor has been so much talked of and written about 
of late years as M. Auguste Rodin (1840). To the more 

enthusiastic of his admirers he leads and 
RodwT^^^ embodies a new Renaissance of sculpture, and 

is the greatest plastic artist the world has 
seen since Phidias ; to others he is a revolutionist, a pursuer of 
notoriety at any price, and a panderer to the grosser instincts 
in man. To judge his work fairly, one must not be drawn 
into either of these currents of controversy. This much is 
certain ; he is a power, and one of the most actively influen- 
tial in these days wherever there is any distinct movement 
of mind concerning the aim and end of sculpture. No man 
without strong original talent could have reached such a 
position. Forces of character and of life have kneaded 
together the artistic quaUties that make M. Rodin what he 
is. He unites in himself the spirit of modern realism and 
that of classic paganism. He does not apparently recognize 
those ideas which in the modern world distinguish the pure 
from the impure, the chaste from the unchaste. Regard 
for what he doubtless considers the prejudices of an artificial 
and hypocritical society compels him to show some measure 
of respect for prevailing opinion ; but from various groups 
that have come out of his studio, for example : " The Kiss," 
" Spring," the " Eternal Idol," and "Amor Fugit," it is not 
difficult to divine what his freedom in art would have been 
had no restraint been placed upon it. The first-named of ^ 
these groups {" Le Baiser," at the Luxembourg) was originally 




Photo by 



Kyvatizky 



M. AUGUSTE RODIN 



Sculptors 153 

designed by M. Rodin for his " Gate of Hell," and was intended 
to represent Paolo and Francesca di Rimini. Here we have 
the keynote to the sculptor's meaning. The remarkable 
vigour and also the hardihood with which the subject is 
treated have made the work famous. 

M. Rodin's power over inanimate matter is such that 
he has sometimes abused it, and exhibited work unfinished 
and uncouth enough to scandalize a novice. Probably the 
unmeasured admiration of enthusiasm may have made him 
forget that he also is a man, and that as such he must be 
ever critical of himself. The foot of his " Muse " in the 
Salon de la Society Nationale (1908) was Httle more than an 
" impression." But impressionism in statuary is rather 
too much for the eye to bear. 

No work of art has been so much wrangled over of late 
years as M. Rodin's statue of Balzac, which has been set up 
in Paris. While some maintain that it is a splendid triumph 
of Hfe-like statuary, others say it is a grotesque caricature 
of the author of the " Human Comedy." It is to be regretted 
that Balzac has been unable to give his opinion on the matter 
and settle the dispute. No one has yet said that the portrait 
is flattering. The head is rugged enough for the shoulders 
of Pan, but amazing life and energy are expressed in the 
whole figure. 

In the expression of energy and action, Rodin is a great 
artist. He misses, more often than he seizes, ideal beauty ; but 
what he does seize is human passion and all that belongs to 
the animal in man. He can express with remarkable vigour 
the energy of war as well as the energy of love, as this was 
understood of old, when the highest law was that of nature. 
An example is that animated group, "L'Appel aux Armes." 
What expression in the clenched hands of the demon-like 
winged figure that appeals to the fighting passion in human 
nature ! This sculptor, by the bye, excels in the art of 
putting expression into hands. His ** Hand of God " is an 
illustration of his power. His work has included a great 



154 France of the French 

variety of subjects. One of his earlier successes was his 
group of the " Burgesses of Calais " going forth to meet the 
English king with ropes round their necks — a dramatic page 
of history, the veracity of which has been questioned. A 
work at once beautiful and masterly is " Le Penseur " in 
the Place du Pantheon. The idea of thoughtfulness is finely 
expressed in this -admirable statue. 

Although of living French sculptors M. Rodin has of late 
years obtained an unrivalled succes de puhUcite, there are many 

who recognize in M. Antonin Mercie (1845) 
^'m^M*'"^" the most highly endowed statuary of the day. 

His art does not break forth volcanically ; 
if he fixes his impressions hastily in clay, these are not for 
public exhibition, but for private use. Judging by some o ' 
his work, or rather so much of it as he has thus far produced, 
he beheves that in no branch of the Fine Arts is there so great 
a need of finish and scrupulous attention to detail as in 
sculpture. M. Mercie's best known work is his "Gloria 
Victis," a protest against the opposite sentiment, " Vae 
Victis," which the Roman world, with its ferocious positivism, 
could alone understand in connection with the vanquished. 
The woe was positive ; the glory was an absurdity. Senti- 
ment, however, has authority in the modern world where 
every thumb would be raised to spare the life of the defeated 
gladiator. Nevertheless, it is striking a rather false note to 
celebrate one's glory in discomfiture. There was too much 
of this kind of sentiment in the years that were near the war 
of 1870 ; but with the passing of time has come that partial 
obliviousness which is often equivalent to calmer judgment. 
The figure of Napoleon on the summit of the Vandome column 
is by Herein, as is likewise the statue of Thiers at St. Germain- 
en-Laye. In fact, no other sculptor has done so much for 
the decoration of pubHc places and the celebration of worthies 
under the Republic as he. He can deal with homely and 
familiar subjects, as well as with those that are especially 
ijiarked out by convention for the statuary's ambitio^,, 




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Statuary by 






QUAND MEME 



Mercit 



Sculptors 155 

One of his Salon pieces for 1908 was a very pleasing group 
of Auvergne peasants dancing the bourree. 

A veteran of the Imperial period, M. E. Fremiet, who was 

born in 1824, has nevertheless been a prolific worker under the 

Republic. Notwithstanding his advanced 

r mie . ^^^^ -^^ ^^ ^^ exhibitor in the Salon (des 

Artistes Fran9ais) of 1908. He is a sculptor of many notable 
works, of which his statues of Jeanne d'Arc and Duguesclin 
are among the most successful. 

Other French statuaries classed with modern masters, or 
holding a high place in public estimation, are Paul Dubois 
(1829-1905), whose St. John, so long at the Luxembourg, 
and Jeanne d'Arc are celebrated works; M. Injalbert (1845) ; 
St. Marceau (1845), sculptor of the " Communicant," and busts 
of Renan and Meissonier ; Bartholdi (1834-1904), sculptor 
of the colossal statue, " La Liberte eclairant le monde," at 
the entrance of New York harbour, the " Lion de Belfort," 
" Vercingetorix," etc. ; Bartholome (1855), sculptor of the 
much admired " Monument to the Dead " at Pere la Chaise. 

Over twelve hundred pieces of statuary were exhibited at 
the Palais des Beaux Arts in 1908, the great majority being 
by French artists. The figure conveys a sufficiently forcible 
idea of French activity in this department of the Fine Arts, 
and also of the encouragement and support given by France 
to the sculptor. It should, moreover, be borne in mind that 
he is an artist who cannot find, with anything like the same 
facility as the painter, a market for his work. Of the many 
men of talent who compete for public favour in this arduous 
and difficult field of ambition, it is only possible here to 
speak of a few others. M. Eugene Bafher (185 1) has pro- 
duced among other work much admired statues of Charlotte 
Corday, Marat, and Serve tus. This last was recently unveiled 
in the Place de Montrouge. An elaborate monument to the 
memory of Gambetta, which is to be set up in Nice, is the 
work of M. Louis Maubert. M. Gardet is the sculptor of 
animal life, and as ^(:h rei^n§, supreme., M. Jean louche?: 



156 France of the French 

is prominent among the younger sculptors. His " Victor 
Hugo at Guernsey " was with the most noticed of new works 
in 1908. M. H. Bouchard's " Man Ploughing " was one of 
the strongest groups in the same Salon. There are women 
sculptors also who have risen above the ranks, conspicuous 
among whom is Mile. Debienne. 



CHAPTER IX 

DRAMATISTS 

When the Third Republic commenced its history it could 
reckon upon a remarkable number of highly gifted and 
highly trained dramatic writers and players for the amusement 
and instruction of the public. For the present, only the 
writers will be spoken of. Conspicuous among dramatists 
were Emile Augier, Alexandre Dumas, the younger (the 
elder died during the war of 1870), Victorien Sardou, Edouard 
Pailleron, Eugene Labiche, Meilhac, and Halevy. To this 
list may be added the name of Fran9ois Copp6e, although his 
light was only beginning to shine at the close of the Empire, 
and it was always more poetic than dramatic. 

Of the multitude of comedies produced on the French 

stage since the middle of the last century, the one that has 

best withstood the test of time is Le Gendre 

Emile Augier. de M. Poirier, by Emile Augier (1828-1889). 
It was brought out in 1854, ^'^^ Y^^ there are 
few playgoers of to-day who are not familiar with it. It is 
one of the favourite stock pieces in the repertory of the 
Com^die-Frangaise, and those who have seen it played a 
score of times have often the courage and inclination to seek 
a renewal of the first sensations. It is good literature as well 
as an amusing comedy of society, in which the principal 
characters have too much human nature to get old-fashioned. 
Little has changed during the succeeding half century except 
the costumes. The mixture of classes in Paris society during 
the early days of the Empire, which Augier uses for the 
humorous situations of his comedy, is the same now, only 
more mixed. Is not the idle and broken-down marquis who 
marries the daughter of a rich parvenu in order to regild his 
scutcheon, or rather to fill his hungry pocket — coats of arms 

157 



158 France of the French 

being less considered now than they were — a figure that has 
been much talked about in the most modern French society ? 
Realism, in the sense of very close observation of life, is the 
characteristic mark of Augier's comedies, of which the best 
known to-day, after the one already mentioned, are probably 
UAventuriere and Les FourchamhauU. His influence in 
making the comedy of modern society what it is was stronger 
than that of any dramatist among his contemporaries. 

The younger Alexandre Dumas (1824-1895) belongs 
equally to the Empire and the Republic. Although he 

seems to most of us quite a modern spirit in 
Dumat^^ms literature, some of his work dates from the 

middle of the last century. Being the son of 
the author of Les Trois MousquetaireSy he left the impression 
on the public of being much younger than he was. The truth 
is, he was only twenty-one years younger than his father. 
His dramatic influence dates from the appearance of La 
Dame aux Camelias, in 1852, the success of which caused the 
story to be quickly adapted to the theatre and also to the 
lyric stage with Verdi's music {La Traviata). The public 
admiration was out of all proportion to the merit of this 
explosion of youthful passion in a direction which should have 
robbed it of its romance ; but it long held the stage, and its 
popularity was not reached by any subsequent work by its 
author, although he produced several that were incomparably 
more intellectual. In all his later pieces he was a moralist 
in the disguise of a dramatist, a pathologist of what he con- 
sidered the worst ulcers of society : the invasion of the 
demi-monde, marriage for money, the insatiable craving for 
luxury and pleasure in the typical society woman and her 
imitators from a distance, also the lax moraHty and low ideals 
of men moving along the same paths of life. He avoided 
dullness by the pungency of his criticism and the brilliant 
flash of his ironical wit. In his later period he originated 
what came to be termed la piece a these, a comedy of which the 
characters were studied from the life in Paris society, and 



Dramatists 159 

in which some puzzHng question of morals or conduct was 
raised as a thesis. By the manner of his denouement Dumas 
answered his own thesis, but sometimes not at all conclusively 
in the opinion of many of his critics. The first representation 
of one of these pieces was always a great Parisian event, 
but the vogue passed away with the author. Among his 
pieces produced since 1870 were : La Femme de Claude, 
L'Etrangere, La Princesse de Bagdad, Francillon, smd Denise. 
The younger Dumas was long a member of the Academy. 
His father, who was a more original and imaginative writer, 
was not admitted to it. 

The fame of Edouard Pailleron (1834-1899) will rest mainly 
on his satirical comedy of Parisian manners. Le Monde ou 
' y Von s'ennuie, produced in 188 1. Not that it 

jSille^on ^^^ ^^^ ^^^y remarkable piece that he wrote : 
Les Faux menages, L'A ge ingrat, Les Cabotins, 
to mention three more of his later period, wear an exceedingly 
bright glitter of epigram and literary polish, but the staying 
quality of dramatic work, so far as the stage is concerned, 
does not depend only upon intellectual and literary strength. 
The public will have what it wants in the way of amusement, 
and when money is paid at a theatre door the motive in 
paying is generally to be amused : the studious people are 
the exception, and they, having as a rule to think of their 
money, can get instruction cheaper and perhaps better from 
lectures at the Sorbonne. There is this in favour of Pailleron's 
comedies ; they will bear reading, for they are distinctly 
literature. After the appearance of Le Monde ou Von s'ennuie, 
his name was somewhat of a terror to the bores of society, 
especially to that too familiar kind of raseur, who talks 
literature, science, or art out of season, and has nothing 
to say worth listening to. Pailleron has been charged 
with cruelty in regard to mildly obnoxious people. No 
doubt he had a caustic pen, and also a tongue to match in 
private life. 

The collaboration of Henri Meilhac (1830-1897) and 



160 France of the French 

Ludovic Hal6vy (1834-1908) produced most of the work that 
made it so famous in the later years of the Empire, but 

the popularity of the Oifenbachian series 

Meilhac and of operettas, of which they wrote the fantastic 

Halfevy. libretti, continued long after 1870, although 

it received a rude blow in France. This 
literary partnership has been spoken of under " Literature," 
and with especial reference to Halevy. It is to be noted 
that although the public taste for operetta continued after 
the war, and was fed by such deft musicians as Charles Lecocq 
(1832), whose Fille de Madame Angot, produced in 1873, met 
with a success scarcely inferior to that of La Grande Duchesse 
de Gerolstein. Audran (1842-1901), composer of La Mascotte 
and Miss Helyett, and Robert Planquette (1850-1903), 
composer of Les Cloches de Corneville, the libretti were 
inferior as regards literary salt to those that owed much of 
their vogue to the joint parentage of Meilhac and Halevy. 

The veteran dramatist in France is M. Victorien Sardou. 
The monumental pile of comedies and dramas due to his 

marvellously industrious and prolific brain is 
^* J^rd°^*^" ^^^^ ^^ might make any contemporary feel 

humble and abashed who should dream of 
comparing work with him. Enfant de Paris, his Parisian 
recollections commenced almost with his life, which began 
in 183 1. He can remember the first Hachette of the great 
publishing and bookselling house working with a single 
clerk ticketing his own books, his frock coat prudently covered 
with a grey blouse. The elder Sardou was a teacher of book- 
keeping, an occupation that had no attraction for his son, 
who, however, kept his own accounts well enough to amass 
a fortune. After dabbling somewhat with medicine, and 
worrying his friends by his assiduity in what they thought 
wrong directions, he was encouraged to persevere in the 
literary career, which now absorbed all his ambition, by a 
commission from Firmin-Didot to write a short article for 
the Biographie Universelle. He has said, perhaps with a 



Dramatists 161 

grain of exaggeration, that it cost him some months of research 
and brought him thirty-five francs. Meanwhile, his ambition 
to write for the stage became the superior passion. His 
first accepted piece, La Taverne des Trabans, was played at 
the Odeon, but failed dismally. Then he wrote a Candida in 
five acts, and having obtained permission to call on Dejazet, 
courageously did so and took the manuscript. He found 
the great actress, who was to him a goddess who had strayed 
from Olympus, with her hands covered with plaster. To the 
dumbfounded young man who tells us that he stood with 
his mouth wide open, as mute as a fish, she said with a laugh, 
" I have just been mending a wall." This simplicity went 
far to put him at his ease. He interested her in himself, 
and although she did not accept his Candida, she set him on 
the road to fame and success by playing the leading parts 
in his vaudevilles, Monsieur Carat, and Les Premieres armes 
de Richelieu. 

But Sardou's reputation was destined to rest on something 
more solid than the vaudeville. He became recognized as a 
dramatist of wide capabilities, and with a marvellous faculty 
of amusing the public after the appearance of that most 
Parisian of light comedies, Pattes de Mouche. It was a 
revelation, too, of his adroitness in all the artifices and tricks 
of the stage for keeping an audience in a state of voluntary self- 
deception and uncertainty, which means sustained interest. In 
this matter Sardou was perceived to be more ingenious than 
Scribe and his imitators. And then the sparkle of the dialogue, 
the wit, the humour, the frequent grivoiserie of allusions, so 
dexterously turned as not to inflict upon the fair playgoer, 
however versed in all the nimble subtleties of the French 
language, the necessity of blushing ! All these qualities 
obtained for Sardou a most enviable position among dramatic 
writers. 

After producing a series of these Parisian comedies, of 
which Divorgons (1880) ranks with the most successful, he 
turned his attention to spectacular pieces more or less 
II— {2398) 



162 France of the French 

historical, and with especial regard for the histrionic gifts 
of Mme. Sarah Bernhardt, for whom the leading parts were 
written. The world-wide success of such pieces as Theodora 
and Fedora need not be dwelt upon. In this kind of work, 
however, it is clear that the author wrote much more for 
immediate results than for his fame. Indeed, his appreciation 
of the substantial and his indifference to shadows has always 
been characteristic of his keen sagacity. V Affaire des 
Poisons is the title of his latest piece. 

No dramatist during the last seventeen years of the nine- 
teenth century made surer and. firmer progress towards fame 

than Henry Becque (1837-1899). And yet 
Henry Becque. his success was not easily made ; far from 

it. The first piece that brought him before 
the public, and the one that in the opinion of many critics 
is his best, Les Corbeaux, was written in 1872, but did not 
receive the hospitality of the stage until 1882. For ten 
years the manuscript was paying visits and returning to 
its owner. Like Noah's dove it could find no place of rest. 
It is known to have been refused by six Paris theatres. If 
the bitter and splenetic irony characteristic of Henry Becque's 
work were not found in Les Corbeaux, already in full bloom, 
one might suspect that these peripetetics of a manuscript 
had something to do with its luxuriance. Henry Becque 
was not an industrious writer, and besides the piece already 
mentioned, his reputation rests mainly upon La Parisienne. 
He was an unsparing critic and satirist of society, in the 
wider sense of this word. His scathing humour sometimes 
reaches ferocity. He saw so much rascality among men, 
and so much heartless frivolity and selfishness among women, 
that his pessimism would have been too depressing for the 
theatre, but for the consummate skill with which he delineates 
his characters while making them speak, and the epigrammatic 
conciseness and sparkle of the dialogue. That he was one 
of the most intellectual of writers for the stage under the 
Republic must be readily granted, but his cynicism is not 



Dramatists 163 

sufficiently gay to conceal the misanthropic current which 
does not always run below the surface. 

M. Jules Lemaitre had taken a leading place as a literary 
and dramatic critic before he began to write for the stage. 

The impulse in this direction was given not 
M. Jules gQ much by the disposition of mind that 

forces men to write for the theatre, and to 
persevere although they may stumble and come to grief 
again and again, as by the resolution of a highly intellectual 
man to find an outlet for the expression of ideas by this 
channel which, by its direct communication with the pubUc, 
and the substantial rewards that it offers to the successful, 
is one of the most alluring of the many objects that attract 
and stimulate ambition. His dramatic work is marked by 
the strength and the weakness of this mental posture and 
purpose. He has not enough of that communicative fire, 
or instinctive grip of what appeals to the public and stirs 
its interest, which is the gift of the predestined dramatist. 
M. Lemaitre was born in 1853, and his first piece, Le Depute 
Leveau, was not produced until 1890, but it was quickly 
followed by Manage Blanc, L'A ge Difficile, and others. Among 
his later pieces are La Massiere and Bertrade. This author 
has done much to give a certain vogue to what is termed the 
" psychological comedy." La Massiere is so human that it 
is of really exciting interest, and it contains scenes and 
situations which are comedy of the best kind. The subject 
is one never before treated in the same way, and with such 
strength of psychological analysis. It is that of a man — 
a painter who has reached fame and fortune — now a good 
way past middle age, who by degrees takes a too sentimental 
interest in a girl who as massiere is brought more into contact 
with him than others who are pupils in his atelier. She 
takes the first place, and is the representative of the others 
in all questions between them and the '* master." He is a 
well-meaning man with a solid affection for his wife, and he 
does not admit to himself that his growing interest in this 



164 France of the French 

girl is more than a fatherly and artistic one until he gets 
pulled up short and suddenly b}^ the revelation that his son 
is in love with her, and wants to marry her. Then there is 
an explosion of indignation and resentment, which is merely 
jealousy in disguise. Finally, the comedy is ended by the 
artist being brought to reason by his wife, and consenting 
to his son's marriage with the massiere, whose youthful 
charms were such a disturbing influence in this excellent 
family. M. Lemaitre's pieces are so literary that those who 
have read them are best fitted to appreciate them on the 
stage. 

M. de Porto-Riche is also classed with writers of the 

psychological comedy. Love is his favourite theme and 

the passion on which he centres his subtle 

^^ K H °^*°" faculty of analysis. Born in 1849, critical 
opinion awards him a high place among 
dramatic writers of the day. He has, however, not been 
very prolific. His Amour eiise, the work that made him 
really known to the public, and which is considered his 
masterpiece, was not produced until 1891. In this he deals 
with all the troubles and perplexities that befall a middle- 
aged man who marries a woman provokingly seductive and 
turbulently young. He depicts the absolute subjugation of 
intellect and energy of character to a feminine influence 
that is not elevating, and the pitiable struggles of this victim 
of misnamed love to free himself from an enthralment that 
renders him useless and ridiculous. The daring originalicy 
of this comedy, combined with the dexterous treatment of 
a hazardous subject has given to it what appears to be lasting 
popularity. After being played at the Vaudeville and the 
Renaissance, it was lately placed in the repertory of the 
Comedie-Fran^aise. Le Passe is another comedy by the 
same author. 

The most brilliant dramatic success of the closing nine- 
teenth centur}, was without question Cyrano de Bergerac, by 
M. Edmond Rostand, whose high place among contemporary 



Dramatists 165 

poets has been noted elsewhere. It v/as indeed the poet, even 
more than the dramatist, who triumphed in this work of 
lasting Hterary excellence. The public has 
^R ^?"^j^^ been waiting since 1897 for an equally capti- 
vating poetic drama from M. Rostand's pen, 
but it has not yet been given. 

The last two or three lustres have witnessed a reaction 
from the naturalism introduced by the Theatre -Libre, and 
also a revolt against the comedie de mceurs, 
^' -^^^^ as planned by Augier and the younger Dumas, 
who, in putting together their scaffolding, 
were influenced not a little by their predecessor Scribe, and 
the vogue that so long attended his comedies. To get away 
from all the well-worn grooves and ruts, and the familiar 
situations leading up to the foreseen denouement, has been 
largely the aim and ambition of dramatic authors born 
under later influences. Among these, M. Paul Hervieu (1857) 
has taken up a distinct place. He felt the incongruity of 
the comedy that is at once tragic and comic. There is not 
much scope for laughter in his pieces, to which the description 
tragedies bourgeoises has been not inaptly given, heavily 
charged as they are with sombre colours. Those who like 
to be harrowed and disgusted with the brutality and ferocity 
of human nature, to be depressed by the cruelty of fate that 
draws into vice and wretchedness those who started on the 
journey of life with a solid outfit of good qualities, and to be 
convinced of the mistake of having been born into a world 
so hopelessly bad, derive great pleasure from M. Hervieu's 
pieces, of which the principal are, La Course du Flambeau, 
VEnigme, Le Dedale, and Le Reveil. There are many people 
among playgoers to whom such sad pictures of life are 
stimulating and refreshing. 

M. Hervieu's realism is generally painful, but it is not 
naturalism. He merely throws into relief the more distressing 
aspects of life. He has had the courage to show, in La 
Cour'ie du Flambeau, that the pivot upon which all that is 



166 France of the French 

most ignoble, cruel, and vicious in modern society turns, is 
not criminal love, which has furnished the central motive 
to such a multitude of dramas and comedies, but the lust of 
money. In other respects he has gone counter to the thread- 
bare methods and cobwebbed traditions of the stage, with 
the result that he has fixed attention upon his work as that 
of a vigorous innovator. 

A dramatic author who has come rapidly to the front since 

1890, and who now ranks with the most successful of the day, 

is M. Maurice Donnay. He was born in 

M. Maurice i35o, and Paris did not beerin to know him 
jjonnay. 

until after the production of his Lysistrata, 

in 1892. Other pieces followed in quick succession, but it 
was not until Georgette Lemeunier was produced in 1898 
that the author stood upon really firm ground. The strength 
of this comedy is not in its plot, for it can hardly be said to 
have one, but in the drawing of character and especially in 
the analysis of motive and sentiment in the case of a man who 
is in love with his wife and another woman at the same time, 
and who wishes to act kindly to both. The wife, however, 
gets to understand the situation, and as she has not learnt 
her ethics in the school of the Mormons, she goes off to her 
mother in high dudgeon, and thus spoils M. Lemeunier's 
plans for making everybody happy, beginning with himself. 
One may be permitted to suppose that the situation of M. 
and Mme. Lemeunier must be far from uncommon to explain 
the interest which the piece immediately aroused. But 
M. Donnay excels in the art of keeping up the effervescent 
attention of an audience with the talk of subsidiary characters, 
who are of the world very wordly. Their tongues rattle on 
in a tone of gay cynicism, and they have that trick of sailing, 
in a conversational sense, as close to the wind — the last 
fraction of the last point — as is adjudged by some undeter- 
mined standard possible in the matter of morals and good 
taste. This, more than any other stage condiment, stimu- 
lates the somewhat jaded palate of the Parisian playgoer. 



Dramatists 167 

Occasionally, M. Donnay allows the meanings which such 
finesse only cloaks to escape in too gross a form ; not that 
from the point of view of morals the frankness of the sixteenth 
century in such matters is not better than the hypocrisy 
of the twentieth. In the way of ideas, Paris society of to-day 
is probably harder than ever to shock, but there is an art 
in expressing ideas not too crudely, yet with sufficient direct- 
ness and point, which to the sprightly intelligence brings 
its glory, just as certain exploits in the air draw honour upon 
gymnasts of the circus. 

A well-remembered piece of later date by this author is 
Le Retour de Jerusalem. The choice of subject, a liaison 
between a Jewess and a Christian, both en rupture de mariage, 
suggests the intention to tap the interest already made in 
France by the Semitic question. In his treatment of the 
subject, M. Donnay appears to have no other object than to 
show that between the Hebrew and the European races there 
are lines of divergence in character too deeply scored for any 
arrangement between Jew and Gentile resting on sentiment 
to be more than transient. It is needless to say that the 
fact of the Frenchman " returning from Jerusalem " proves 
nothing. The system of *' free union " is rather notorious for 
its fragility. During the last few years M. Donnay has 
produced V Autre Danger, VOiseau de Passage (in collabora- 
tion with M. Lucien Descaves), and Paraitre. The last-named 
was brought out in 1906, at the ComMie-Fran^aise. It is a 
finished piece of dramatic work, and gives very vivacious 
pictures of a frivolous society. 

During the early years that immediately preceded and 
followed the divorce legislation of 1884, writers of light 

comedy, notably M. Sardou (Divorgons, 1880) 
^Bdeux"^ and M. Alexandre Bisson {Les Surprises du 

Divorce, 1884), found in the subject new 
springs of gaiety and material for droll situations. Paris 
laughed for a decade or more over divorce, and then the 
laughter began to " turn yellow "- — to employ a picturesque 



168 France of the French 

French saying. The fruits of divorce were more abundant 
than satisfactory. On all sides vexatious and perplexing 
situations had arisen, chiefly on account of children. The 
time had now come for the dramatist to deal with the grave 
social consequences arising from the legal facilities afforded 
to the ill-married to act upon the impulse of resentment and 
render irreparable what time might have mended. One of 
the first to seize this opportunity was M. Eugene Brieux, who, 
in Le Berceau, produced in 1898, placed the whole question at 
once on the right footing, and laid out the action of his piece 
from the point of view most intimately connected with French 
sentiment : the situation of the child. Laurence Chantrel, 
convinced of her husband's infidelity, and having substantial 
grounds for the conviction, obtains a decree of divorce with 
the utmost expedition, and makes a second marriage in order 
to forget the first. But there is a child, whom she by right 
retains, and this boy is unfortunately a most disturbing 
portrait of his father. The second husband cannot bear the 
sight of him, because of the jealousy of the living predecessor 
thus awakened. He cannot conquer the feeling ; a law of 
nature makes him jealous, and he loathes the presence of 
the child which sets it in movement. Then the boy falls 
very ill, and when in danger of death the father claims his 
right to see him. Thus the divorced couple meet again by 
the child's bed. The strong sentiment that both have in 
common re-unites them. Words of regret escape him, and 
she forgives. They are to one another as husband and wife, 
but there is a formidable obstacle in the way — the legal 
husband whom she married more from spitefulness than 
preference, and under the influence of friends who were evil 
counsellors. The child recovers, and the denouement can 
be foreseen. In real life the re-marriage of divorced couples 
is not unknown. 

Other pieces by the same author were written with a 
social purpose. Thus Les Trois Filles de M. Dupont points 
out the baneful consequences that may and do arise from 



Dramatists 169 

the French marriage system, which renders it so difficult for 
a portionless girl above the working class to find a husband. 
Resultat des Courses throws into relief the mischief that the 
betting habit, which has so vastly increased in France during 
the last twenty years, is now doing among people who have 
to work for their living. The lay sermon is also to be found 
in the author's later pieces, Les Avaries, and Maternite. 

M. Henri Lavedan is a satirist of the life and manners of 
his times in the sense that Juvenal was one. Not that he 

imitates the manner of Juvenal or draws his 
M. Henn pictures with the same ferocious display of 

violent colours. He is, nevertheless, a hard 
hitter, without being a gay one. He conveys the impression 
of hating with much thoroughness most of the characters 
that he has studied in drawing-rooms and other not inacces- 
sible places, and has put on the stage. He does not belong 
to the familiar series of French dramatists who laugh while 
they satirize, and perceive a humorous side to almost every 
evil propensity, every phase of meanness, dishonesty, and 
malice entering into the comedy of life. It is easy to divine 
that he would have been a " hanging judge " if a destiny 
different from his had given ample opportunities of stringing 
up all sorts of culprits in the old days, when little time was 
wasted on judicial psychology. M. Lavedan was born in 
1860, and his first piece of any value, Mem'zelle Vertu, was 
produced in 1885. As the work of a young man of twenty-five 
it showed much promise. The author is still classed with 
young dramatists, but the tendency of the public is to keep 
the label of youth on people of note until it is time to change 
it for another much less consoling. There is no middle age 
for a man of brilliant parts ; still less for the woman. Le 
Marquis de Priola is one of M. Lavedan's best known pieces, 
and it belongs to the present century. In the principal 
character he has drawn the portrait of the modern Don Juan 
of society. His familiarity with this kind of hero is shown 
in every touch of the pencil. Without doubt he concentrated 



170 France of the French 

in one type the leading characteristics common to many 
that had come under his observation. He is not tender to 
his marquis, and he has none of the indulgence for Don 
Juanism which some great poets and many dramatists have 
shown. In it the selfishness of the animal is united to some- 
thing that is not of the brute — something devilish, because 
where the mischief possible to be done is greatest, there lies 
the chief motive and attraction. This is a perversion of 
nature, which makes " love " as thus understood only a phase 
of cruelty, and cruelty is the worst form of sensuality. Circe, 
ancient and modern, is in this association of ideas perhaps not 
less ruthless than Don Juan. M. Lavedan's marquis has 
not the dashing devilry of the old-fashioned stage type of 
seducer who has only to spread his net for a woman to be 
sure of catching her, nor has he the daring that went with 
the business. It is with design that the author has made 
his up-to-date Don Juan more contemptible than monstious. 
He despises all women, and is incapable of loving one. If 
he seeks their society so much vanity is the chief motive. 
To him the sweetest flattery is to hear that he has made this 
or that fresh conquest, or to know that it is being said. This 
reputation is dearer to him than any other, and he lives to 
uphold it. It is easier to understand such a character as 
this than the women to whom M. Lavedan introduces us. 
Le Marquis de Priola gives anything but pleasant pictures of 
contemporary life. The author lashes all round, but this is 
not enough to bring conviction that society is quite as bad as 
he paints it. There are scenes of rasping crudity in the piece, 
which was nevertheless produced at the Theatre-Frangais. 
It is impossible to draw any line now as to what may be said 
and acted even on the stage of leading theatres. 

In Le Duel, produced in 1904, M. Lavedan does not deal 
with the morality of the unwritten " Code of honour," or 
use a duel between two men as either the mainspring or 
denouement of a plot. This is a duel between two antagonistic 
currents of thought and feeling, the one pagan and the other 



Dramatists 171 

Christian. A duchess, ill-mated — the old story — to a man 
of her own class, but a bundle of vices and degeneracy, and 
to whom the abuse of morphine is the last straw that breaks 
down the little mind he has left, finds in the doctor of the 
private asylum — an establishment to which the euphemistic 
term, maison de sante, is always applied — in which the duke 
is placed, a man after her own heart. Those who look on 
marvel a little, for independently of the difference of station, 
there is a deep gulf between the two, as regards the whole 
range of ideas, beliefs, and conceptions of life. She, like 
most Frenchwomen of aristocratic birth and fortune, has 
been reared in an atmosphere of intense Catholicism, and 
although she is not a devote, all her idealism is intimately 
woven up with Christian morals and aspirations. She is, 
moreover, a woman of refined and delicate feelings. He is 
an atheist, and a coarse-grained one, whose views on the 
relations of the sexes are thoroughly pagan. He has, there- 
fore, not the slightest respect for her scruples, but sets himself 
to the task of overthrowing them with ruthless pertinacity. 
At times the balance becomes so even that no sign is given 
as to how this duel will end, but it does end in the most 
virtuous of compromises, by the duke considerately jumping 
out of a window of the asylum, and leaving his widow free 
to marry the doctor. Much of the psychological interest of 
this piece — which is powerfully kept up — is derived from sub- 
sidiary characters and their influence upon the parties to the 
duel. It should be added that M. Lavedan is a strong writer 
capable of expressing much alertness of thought in language 
that rivets attention and stays in the memory. He entered 
the Academy in 1898. 

The way in which the House of Moliere has been keeping 
" open house " of late years has no more striking illustration 

than its reproduction of M. Fran9ois de 
^de^?"rel^^ CureFs Les Fossiles, which was brought out 

some time previously at the " Museum of 
Horrors," "as some people termed M. Antoine's Theatre-Libre. 



172 France of the French 

The naturalism or Zolaism — which seems the better word — 
of this piece is very marked. The whole action turns upon 
the question whether a man or his son is the father of a 
certain child. The opportunities that this lead off offers to 
the study and exhibition of peculiar manners are obvious. 
Other works by the same author are La Nouvelle Idole, Le 
Repas du Lion, and La Fille Sauvage. They are more or 
less marked by the same defects of taste, the same attempt 
common to writers of this school of stoking the fires of 
mischievous curiosity under the pretext of serving a moral 
and salutary purpose. M. Frangois de Curel was born in 

1854. 

M. Octave Mirbeau, who was born in 1850, and who for a 
short time had charge of a Sous- Prefecture — an experience 

that did not agree with him — has led a 
^irbe^^ very busy life as novelist and journalist, and 

more recently as dramatist. His quarrel 
with M. Coquelin (the elder) over a violently scornful article 
that he (M. Mirbeau) wrote on the profession of the comedian, 
headed " Le Pitre " (buffoon) is still remembered " on the 
Boulevard." M. Mirbeau probably did not foresee then the 
likelihood that he would write for the stage, and have need 
of actors. His Mauvais Bergers was produced in 1898, 
and this was followed in 1903 by Les Affaires sont Us Affaires. 
This is a subject that tcuches responsive chords in the heart 
of modern society. To say that the world of to-day is absorbed 
by the greed of money is not stating the case correctly, 
because the passion of avarice was perhaps never weaker than 
it is now. On the other hand, it may be confidently asserted 
that the love of what money procures : amusements of all 
sorts, luxurious living, display of costly ease ; in a word, of 
ostentatious idleness free from all fetters of ways and means 
and grinding duties, was never so absorbing or so wide- 
spread as it is now. One might add that the philosophy of 
what constitutes happiness was never so misunderstood. 
The consequence of the prevailing state of mind is to give a 



Dramatists 173 

powerful incentive to the desire of making or getting money 
fast and abundantly. In Les Affaires sont les Affaires, 
M. Mirbeau has ploughed afresh ground already turned over 
by Balzac {Mercadet), the younger Dumas {Question d'argent), 
and others, but he has given to it a more up-to-date treat- 
ment. The parvenu and snob, mean, arrogant, unscrupulous, 
and ostentatious, who believes in nothing but the power of 
money which he has hastily acquired by crooked means, is 
here laid upon the dissecting table and subjected to a scalpel 
whose edge is uncommonly keen. 

A dramatic author whose power of interesting and amusing 
has brought him much into notice during the present century 

and made him one of the most popular of 
M. Alfred those who now write for the Paris stage is 

M. Alfred Capus. His activity in this 
direction is not of recent date, but it is latterly that he found 
a straight path to success, which he has since been able to 
follow easily. La Veine, which was produced in 1901, is a 
sparkling light comedy, ingenious without being complicated, 
and thoroughly Parisian in spirit. It marks a return towards 
the light comedy of fifty years ago, and this is even more 
suggested in La Chatelaine, produced the following year. 
The vaudeville-comedy of Scribe, and the farce of Labiche, 
may reconquer their old place in public favour, Paris 
having grown rather tired of experiments and gropings of 
recent years. Among still later work by this author are the 
comedies, L'Adversaire (written in collaboration with M. E. 
Arene) and Notre Jeunesse. M. Capus was born in 1858. 

M. Jean Richepin is so much more a poet than a dramatist, 
that, notwithstanding the success of his piece in verse, Le 

Chemineau — mentioned in the section on 
DramatLts Literature, it is needless to dwell here upon 

this side of his work. 
M. CatuUe Mendes, another contemporary poet, has also 
essayed to adapt his talents to the theatre {Scarron, 1905, 
Chatigny, 1906, and La Vierge d'Avila, 1906) but with no 



174 France of the French 

great success. In La Vierge d'Avila, the Spanish saint Teresa 
was brought on the stage and impersonated by Mme. Sarah 
Bernhardt. 

M. Emile Fabre, one of the younger dramatists who have 
made themselves known to the public during the present 
century, flourishes the satirical whip to some purpose. La 
Vie Publique, produced in 190 1, is a clever and caustic satire 
on political life, especially in connection with the great 
electoral comedy that is everlastingly repeated. In Les 
Ventres Dores he satirises those who are good enough to take 
charge of other people's money and make it fructify, and 
who, in France, are brought under the denomination of 
** financiers " — one of most commodious elasticity. 

M. Pierre Wolff, who has not yet passed the fateful 
quarantaine, that Rubicon of human life which must be 
approached with thoughtfulness (he was born in 1870), has 
had several pieces produced on the Paris stage, the first of 
which, Celles qu'on Respecte, dates from 1892. Of those that 
followed, Le Beguin (1900), Le Secret de Polichinelle (1902), 
V Age d' Aimer (1905), and Le Ruisseau (1907), are the best 
known. The last-named piece is the story of a woman who 
is raised from " the gutter " by a man who discovers in her 
a " gem of purest ray " encrusted with mud. 



CHAPTER X 

PLAYERS 

The histrionic aptitude is so natural to the French that 

there is no great exaggeration in saying that most French 

people are born actors. Their tendency is to 

The French and show more feeling than they feel. Their 

the Theatre, earnestness, their interest, their emotionalism 
generally, even when unreal, add something 
to the graces of life. The art of being interesting to others 
is no mean social accomplishment, although it may be only 
art. The inference that the French are not fundamentally 
as sincere and in earnest as any other people is by no means 
suggested. If they are apt to err on the side of a false expan- 
siveness, forcing the note until it jars on the sense of fitness, 
the affectation of indifference, the shame of appearing 
surprised at anything, the contempt of all that savours of the 
demonstrative are more disagreeable. 

The French can dissimulate perfectly when they have a 
motive for doing so, but they do not dissimulate without a 
motive, and are not ashamed of showing their feelings, unless 
they have a reason for shame. This leads to great force as 
well as simplicity of expression, mobility of the features and 
emphasis of the idea by fitting gesture ; in short, an artlessness 
which is perfect art of its kind. 

They are an artistic nation : their literature, their painting, 
their sculpture, and above all their architecture, prove this. 
Their dramatic sense is singularly strong and active.- Almost 
every little town of a few thousand inhabitants has its theatre. 
Throughout France the theatre is intimately identified with 
the life and genius of the nation. It has also exercised 
an immense influence upon the stage of other European 
countries. 

175 



176 France of the French 

At no period since the theatre has been a recognized insti- 
tution intimately allied to literature has there been a dearth 
of histrionic talent in France. Even the Revolutionary epoch 
had its Talma and Mile. Mars, only to mention two theatrical 
stars whose light shone in the chaos of that period. Never 
were living French actors and actresses so much talked about 
and written about everywhere as they have been since the 
war of 1870. 

The stage in France is included in the general scheme of 
Public Instruction, and it is the Minister of this Department, 
which is united to that of Fine Arts, who 
The State and exercises supreme control over it. No new 
the Stage. piece can be produced without his authoriz- 
ation, but the censorship is now understood 
in a spirit of very wide benevolence. Practically, it is only 
put in force when a dramatic work deals with a subject that 
might give offence in another country, and disturb inter- 
national relations. If certain limits of decency were over- 
stepped the permission to produce a piece might be refused, 
but nobody has more than a vague notion where this boundary 
lies. Obscenity on the stage is a punishable offence, but 
here again very divergent views may turn round the word. 
The censorship in Paris is entrusted to four inspectors who 
are supposed to read the manuscripts of new pieces and songs. 
In the provinces the responsibility of sanction rests with the 
Prefects. The State's connection with the stage is not only 
one of control, it is also one of support. The Conservatoire 
in Paris is a public institution for the training of aspirants 
to the dramatic and musical professions, who, if they can 
qualify for admission, obtain free instruction from the best 
professors. Moreover, certain Paris theatres are, on grounds 
of public utility, regularly subventioned by the State. These 
are the Opera (Academie-Nationale de Musique), the Opera- 
Comique, the Comedie-Frangaise, and the Odeon. The 
sum voted annually for this purpose is no less than £57,600, 
of which the two opera houses receive ;f44,ooo. The Gaite 



Players 177 

belongs to the city of Paris, and is officially described as 
the Theatre-Municipal. 

The life of Madame Sarah Bernhardt, who was born in 1844, 
is to a great extent the history of the French stage of the 

last forty years. Even critics who cannot 

Madame Sarah forget her caprices, her self-advertising tricks, 

Bernhardt. and all the little mistakes of judgment which 

she crowded with rather unpleasant obtru- 
siveness upon public notice in the years long since dead, 
must allow that during the period named no such original 
and altogether remarkable example of histrionic talent as 
herself has been given to the world by France. In her is 
that mixture of blood which so often produces startling 
effects of originality. By her father she is of Jewish race, 
and by her mother French. In her character, her Hebrew 
descent is not easy to distinguish, but in her physical power 
of endurance under exhausting and long-sustained efforts, we 
may perhaps detect the privileged constitution of the Chosen 
People. This capacity of resistance to wear and tear is in her 
united to an intense sestheticism, which at one time overflowed 
the dramatic channel into other arts. Sarah Bernhardt was 
never under the influence of the Synagogue, She received 
her education in a convent at Versailles, and there was a time 
when the religious life had for her so strong an attraction 
that it is said the born actress nearly became a nun. It is 
impossible to decide whether the gain to religion would have 
been greater than the loss to the stage had she persevered 
in that direction. What we know is that the theatrical 
vocation became stronger than the other. She passed out 
of the Conservatoire with a second prize only, but was engaged 
at the Theatre-Frangais at the age of eighteen. She soon 
left the " House of Moliere " for the Gymnase ; thence she 
went to the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, and she was at the 
Odeon when, in 1869, Le Passant, by Francois Coppee, was 
produced there. The importance of this event to him and 
to her has been spoken of under *' Literature." As the 

12— (239&) • 



178 France of the French 

page Zanetto, the charm of her voice and diction, and the 
expressiveness of her features, made such an impression that 
from being an almost obscure young actress she became 
suddenly a Parisian celebrity. She returned to the Comedie- 
Frangaise, and for nearly ten years after the war her light 
there was such that all others paled before it, notwithstanding 
the number of great reputations with which her own was then 
mingled. Paris talked incessantly of " Sarah," as if there 
were no other Sarah in the world. It is a name that she 
gave to herself, for she was registered Rosine. She left 
nothing undone calculated to stimulate public curiosity in 
regard to Sarah's doings. Her balloon ascents by day, and 
at night her descent into a coffin lined with white satin, as an 
antidote to frivolity ; her flashing inroads upon the domains 
of painting and sculpture ; her passion for snakes and wild 
beasts ; her quarrels and attachments ; the historic chase of 
Marie Colombier round her dining-room table, after this 
actress, with whom she had been associated in America, had 
written a disgraceful book entitled, Sarah Barnum (which 
was seized by the police) — all these and other doings fell 
Hke journalistic manna to the Paris Press in the seventies 
and eighties. 

But Madame Sarah Bernhardt's greatest achievement in the 
art of setting all Paris by the ears, was her breaking away 
from the Comedie-Frangaise in defiance of the rules and 
powers of this august corporation. She did not care for 
penalties she incurred by the breach of her bond as a 
societaire. Like another Eve she allowed herself to be 
tempted, but the fruit was not an apple ; it was the '' almighty 
dollar," and the serpent was Uncle Sam. That was in 1880. 
America was then Tom Tiddler's ground for the stars of the 
European stage. It is less so now. Madame Sarah Bernhardt 
was offered unprecedented terms : £100 for each representation, 
a third of the gross receipts, if under £600, and if above this 
figure, one half of such excess ; all her expenses to be paid. 
Here was a prospect of living within her income and evading 



Players 179 

the wolves that had gathered about her door, until she could 
throw them their meat. Away she went to America, where 
she snapped her fingers at the verdict of £4,000 damages 
obtained by the Comedie-Frangaise against her. During her 
long series of tours there, and in other parts of the world, 
she had in M. Sardou a confederate of inestimable value. 
She was not long in discovering that the Americans, although 
they applauded her frantically, understood very little of what 
she said. It became clear to her that the classical repertory 
which had made her famous at the Theatre-Frangais was 
ill-suited to them. She wanted pieces that would tell their 
story plainly by the action, and would be dramas with one 
central character of absorbing interest. M. Sardou prepared 
these dishes : Fedora, Theodora, etc., with consummate art. 
But for Sarah Bernhardt they would never have come out 
of his kitchen. Both were well satisfied with the results. 
From time to time she returned to Paris and obtained either 
in her own name, or in that of her son, M. Maurice Bernhardt, 
the use of various theatres, until at length all difficulties 
with the Comedie-Frangaise having been arranged, and 
much money having been harvested by tours, she crowned 
her ambition by taking the old Theatre des Nations, in the 
Place du Chatelet, renovating it, and giving it the name of 
the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt. Here she now reigns, and 
her light continues to shine on the French stage with 
power. Her superiority as an actress is largely due to her 
melodious and sympathetic voice, and her literary sense of 
the value and rhythm of language. In 1882 Mme. Sarah 
Bernhardt married an actor of Greek origin, M. Damala, who 
died in 1889. 

Here it seems necessary to say something of that 
" House of Moli^re," which is so frequently mentioned in 
connection with the lives of the leading actors and actresses 
of France. 

The foundation of the Comedie-Frangaise dates from 1680. 
The statutes of the corporation now in force are those laid 



180 France of the French 

down by Napoleon, in 1812, in what is known as the " Moscow 
decree," but somewhat modified by later decrees. The State 

subvention to the theatre, which ranks 

The Comedie- officially as the " Premier Theatre-Fran^ais," 

Frangaise. is £9,600 per annum. This raises it above 

the plane of mere speculation, and guaran- 
tees a secure future to those who become members of the 
society, and who have the strength of character and tact to 
resist temptations from without, and intrigue from within, 
in order to reap the solid ultimate advantages which a mem- 
bership offers. The rank of societaire carries with it, besides 
the salary agreed upon, a direct interest in the net proceeds. 
These are divided into so many '' parts," and the number of 
parts allotted to members depends upon the length of service. 
Retiring pensions are also provided for. All members have 
the right of vote on any question affecting the corporation, 
but the general business is transacted by the " administrator " 
or director (who since 1885 has been M. Jules Claretie) 
assisted by a committee. 

Sons of a baker and pastrycook of Boulogne, familiar 
enough in their young days with the art of kneading dough 

and making the paste of a vol-au-vent, the 
The Coquelins. brothers Coquelin preferred to feed the public 

with the bread of comedy rather than follow 
their father's more prosaic calling. In which matter they 
seemed very wrong at first. The lightest pastry is generally 
a more solid thing to rest upon than the stage. The elder 
brother (Constant), destined to become world-known as 
Coquelin aine, was born in 1841, and he set the younger 
one (Alexandre), born in 1848, and whom fame has caressed 
under the name of Coquelin cadet, a dangerous example by 
forsaking the baker's oven for the actor's furnace. He 
obtained an engagement in the local theatre, and soon found 
popularity. This turn for histrionics in the family alarmed 
the father more than it gratified his pride, especially when 
the younger son, disturbed by his brother's brilliant example. 



Pla3^ers 181 

began to quarrel with the kneading trough and yearn for 
the footlights. A few years passed, and then the two brothers 
were at the Comedie-Fran^aise, the joy of all Parisians. The 
elder with his broad mouth, small nose, and malicious eyes, 
was physically the ideal c ^median for some of the well-known 
characters of Moliere. He had also the ringing laugh, the 
impudent intonation, and the comic gesture to match the 
physique. As the valet of the classical repertory, he has had 
no rival in the memory of the living. But his ambition went 
beyond the parts allotted to him at the Theatre-Frangaise, 
and his imagination was no doubt disturbed by the golden 
harvest reaped by his old comrade, Sarah Bernhardt. He 
also broke away from the Comedie-Fran^aise, and he joined 
her on some memorable tours. His most famous impersona- 
tion of later times was that of " Cyrano de Bergerac," in 
M. Rostand's poetic and pathetic comedy. His refined 
acting and cultured rendering of th" verses marked a wide 
separation from the comedy parts of earliei years. The 
younger Coquelin is an actor of much less breadth of wing, 
but irresistibly comic in the parts for which he is suited, and 
which require a certain phlegmatic drollery. M. Alexandre 
Coquelin has remained faithful to the Comedie, but he has 
made much money out of doors by reciting comic monologues 
of his own composition, which some years ago had an extra- 
ordinary success, mats, tout passe, etc. There is this also to 
be said, M. Alexandre Coquelin grew tired of his success 
in this direction. He has latterly suffered from a very dis- 
tressing illness that has removed him — it is hoped only 
temporarily — from the stage. M. Jean Coquelin, son of 
M. Constant Coquelin, is also an excellent comedian, and 
is making his way steadily in public favour at the 
Comedie-Fran^aise. 

M. Mounet-Sully is the strong and faithful pillar of the 
Comedie-Frangaise. He is also its father in point of age, 
for he was born in 1841. The impression that a great 
many people still keep of him is that of the tragic actor. 



182 France of the French 

almost youthful in the full volcanic activity of his nature ; 
but birth- dates are facts that sometimes pull the imagination 

up with a violent jerk. We must expect 
M. Mounet-Sully. to hear before long of his retirement from 

the stage. The loss will be great, for the 
really tragic actor is getting very rare. The great passions, 
as expressed in art, do not find enough oxygen in these days 
to keep their fire burning easily. Perhaps it is the very 
seriousness of modern life and its problems that makes us 
turn more and more to frivolity for recreation. Whatever 
the reason, the tragedian appears to be passing away like 
the poet. No actor, as far as we can see, will be able to fill 
the place of M. Mounet-Sully at the Theatre-Frangais. 
He was born at Bergerac, on the banks of that captivating 
river the Dordogne, but like so many other people of talent 
who felt the first sensations of life in the Southern provinces, 
he was drawn to Paris early. He entered the Conservatoire, 
but whereas he took a second prize in comedy, he was only 
an accessit in tragedy. He was but beginning to get known 
at the Od^on when the war broke out. He then went 
soldiering as an officer of mobiles. He was engaged at the 
Th^atre-Frangaise in 1872, and then for a course of years 
his movement upward in public estimation was uninterrupted. 
In pieces of the classic repertory, and in the tragic parts 
(Le Cid, Phedre, (Edipe Roi, etc.), he was unapproached 
by any contemporary. His acting, however, is not confined 
to the classic tragedy. He has won high distinction also in 
the romantic drama, notably in Hernani and Ruy Bias, and 
in such pieces as L' Etrangere and VA venturiere. But although 
his versatility is great, it is as the tragic actor that his reputa- 
tion has been mainly built up. He has been a societaire of 
the Comedie-Fran9aise since 1874. By the retirement of those 
excellent comedians, Got (1822-1901) and Delaunay (1826- 
1903), the mantle of oldest societaire fell upon him. This 
mantle of seniority after a certain age is not like a crown won at 
the Olympian games, but M. Mounet-Sully wears it gracefully. 



Mayers \ 183 

Mademoiselle Bartet, who was born in Paris in 1854, has 

been one of the most prominent and popular actresses of the 

Com^die-Frangaise during the last twenty 

Mile. Bartet. years. She became a member of the Society 

in 1880. Always to be relied upon to acquit 

herself of responsible parts both in drama and comedy, the 

list of her successes is very long. 

Madame Barretta-Worms, who was born at Avignon in 

1855, became a member of the Society in 1876, after brilliant 

d6buts as Henriette in Les Femmes Savantes. 

^Tm ^w^^*^^ ^^^ h^^ created leading parts in a long series 

of comedies. She married M. Worms, a 

fellow sociefaire, well known as an accomplished actor and 

professor of declamation at the Conservatoire. 

Mademoiselle Miiller, who was born in Paris in 1865, and 

has been a societaire since 1887, is much appreciated in lighter 

comedy paits. Her debuts in On ne hadine 

Mile. Muller. ^^^ ^^^^ l' Amour indicated the direction in 

which her talent would make itself most valued. 

Mile. Dudley has long played the leading parts of the tragic 

repertory, for which she has the features and the disposition. 

Her success is memorable in the later annals 

Mile. Dudley, of the Paris stage, in such pieces as Le Cid, 

Charlotte Corday, Mithradate, and Bajazet. 

She was bom in Brussels, and has been a societaire since 

1883. 

Mademoiselle Marthe Brandes, a gifted and popular actress, 
after fluttering from stage to stage, returned to the Comedie- 

Frangaise in 1893, and became a societaire 
Mile. Brandos, three years later. She is not to be easily 

matched in certain comedy parts, as for 
instance, the countess in Le Mariage de Figaro. Her wide 
range of talent, however, enables her to interpret with con- 
fidence such characters as Dona Sol, in Hernani, and 
Clorinde, in U Aventuriere. Mile. Brandos was born in Paris 
in 1862. 



184 France of the French 

Madame Segond- Weber, after much varied experience 

on the Paris stage, was engaged at the Theatre-Frangaise 

in 1900. Her power lies chiefly in tragic 

"^Wb °"*^" P^^s, such as Cassandra and Iphigenia. 

She was born in P?ris in 1867. 

Mademoiselle Sorel is another of the later acquisitions of 

the Society. She was born in 1872, and after making her 

debuts in operetta, relinquished this for 

Mile. Sorel. vaudeville and light comedy. After essaying 

higher comedy with success, she passed from 

the Gymnase to the Odeon, and thence to the Comedie- 

Frangaise. 

M. Silvain has been a member of the Society since 1883, 
and among actors is one of the best known. He is an all- 
round good actor of large experience and 
. 1 vain. discrimination, and is, moreover, a professor 
at the Conservatoire. He has announced his intention to 
retire from the Comedie-Frangaise. He was born at Bourg, 
in 185 1. 

M. J. C. Truffier has played in a long list of comedies 
produced at this house, and has created several well-known 
parts. He is a dramatic author as well as 
' ^" '^^' an actor, and has written some fairly success- 
ful pieces. He was born in Paris, in 1856, was engaged at 
the Comedie-Fran9aise in 1875, and became a societaire in 
1888. 

M. Raphael Duflos is one of the younger societaires, having 
been elected in 1896. He was born at Lille in 1858, and 
after his debuts at the Odeon in 1882, 
• " °^' established his reputation as an actor of 
strength and resource, especially in tragedy and drama. 
One of his most successful parts is that of the king in Henri 
III et sa Cour. He is the best Laertes that has appeared on 
the French stage in recent times. 

M. Le Bargy, who was born near Paris in 1858, and became 
a societaire in 1887, is for all-round work one of the most 



Players 185 

useful members of the corporation. He is a professor at the 
Conservatoire. Other players of note at the Comedie-Frangaise 
are Mile. Jeanne Delvair (born in Paris, 1877), Mile. Marie 

Kalb (born near Paris in 1859), ^- ^^ Feraudy 

Other Players (^Qj-n near Paris in 1859), and M. Albert- 

Francais. Lambert (born at Rouen in 1865), M. George 

Berr (born in Paris in 1867), who is also a 
professor at the Conservatoire and a dramatic author ; M. L. P. 
Leloir (born in Paris, i860), M. J. P. Mounet (born at Bergerac, 
1853), and Mme. Tessandier (born at Libourne, 1851), who 
for many years played leading tragic parts at the Odeon. 

It is interesting to note what a large proportion of the 
actors and actresses of the Comedie-Frangaise were born in 
or near Paris. No other illustration is needed of the influence 
of surroundings upon the development of histrionic talent. 
A Parisian-born, and a very typical product of the soil 
and atmosphere, is Madame Rejane, who has been in the 

world since 1856. How few would suppose 
me. ejane. -^ , ^ charming and fascinating woman, as 
well as a singularly bright and vivacious actress, Gabrielle 
Charlotte Reju (her real name), after taking a second prize 
for comedy at the Conservatoire, made her debuts at the 
Vaudeville in 1875. Her success was immediate. In the 
years that followed she has figured very conspicuously at 
most of the Paris theatres, and the mention of her name 
recalls impressions of such pieces as Les Dominos Roses, Clara 
Soldi, D Score, Sapho, Amour euse, Madame Sans-Gene, and 
Divorgons. Austere parts have never offered any attraction 
for this daughter of Melpomene ; but skating on the thinnest 
ice that will withstand the pressure between saying and 
suggesting is an exercise in which she exhibits consummate 
nimbleness, that is not devoid of grace. She married M. 
Porel, director of the Vaudeville, but the knot was cut with 
those scissors which are now kept so busy in the temple of 
Themis, where they have become not less symbolical than 
the scales. 



186 France of the French 

Madame Theo has succeeded in keeping the date of her 
birth from profane curiosity. It was in the neighbourhood 
of Paris that she made her entrance upon the 
"^^* * stage of Ufe, and in 1873 she was engaged by 
Offenbach at the Renaissance, where, as "La joUe Parfu- 
meuse," she delighted the city, which was recovering its 
gaiety after the shocks of war. Her varied experience of 
life commenced early, for at the age of fifteen and a half she 
left the convent, where she was being educated, to get 
married. Not long afterwards she was singing at the Eldorado 
music-hall, where she attracted the attention of Offenbach, 
who noticed that she was an actress as well as a singer. It 
was indeed as an actress of surpassing verve that she made her 
way to renown by the fantastic path of operetta. Her 
charm helps to preserve alive impressions of Orphee aux 
Enfers, Madame VArchiduc, Rataplan, La Mascotte, and how 
many more pieces inspired by the muse of ungirdled mirth 
and easy morals ! Of late years, Mme. Th^o has done a great 
deal of touring in America and other parts of the world, 
and Paris has seen but little of her. 

Madame Jeanne Granier, one of the most amusing and 

popular of actresses who have figured in vaudeville and 

operetta under the Republic, was born in 

^ Granier""^ 1^52, and in Paris. She scored her first success 
when one night she had to double her part 
at the Renaissance, and play " La jolie Parfumeuse," in the 
place of Mme. Th6o. Her next part was in GirofLe-Girofia 
(1874). Then comes a long list : Le Petit Due, Les Premieres 
armes de Richelieu, Madame la Diable, Mademoiselle Gavroche, 
Madame Satan, Le Vieux Marcheur, only to mention a few of 
the pieces whose success was identified with herself. On 
the stage she has all the piquancy and droll impertinence 
of the typical gamin de Paris, and in every part she has 
played she has been Mademoiselle Gavroche. 

Madame Jane Hading may well be termed " une enfant de 
la balle," for she made her debuts on the boards at the 








Photo by 



Bayer 



MME. RE JANE 



Players 187 

immatufe age of three. That was at Marseilles, where she 
was born in 1861. The first part she played was that of a 
doll, which did not severely tax those talents 
^H^d'"^^^^ of the accomplished actress that were re- 
vealed later. On adopting the profession of 
the stage, she changed her name from Jeannette Hadingue 
to the one by which she is so widely known, and whose 
English look, when printed, has deceived many with regard 
to her origin. She has appeared on the stage of all the leading 
theatres of Paris, including the Comedie-Frangaise, and her 
name is identified with the success of a long list of pieces 
produced during the last twenty years. Her range of talent 
is very wide, her stage career being associated not only with 
such pieces as Froufrou, Nos Intimes, U Avenhiriere, but with 
Les Jocrisses de I' Amour, and other vaudevilles. She has 
been married and un-married — in all things a brilliant, 
up-to-date woman who moves with the tide. 

A veteran of the Paris stage, and an admirable comedian 
in the lower register of comedy, M. Louis Baron was born 
at Alengon in 1838. After serving as a 
M. Louis Baron, carabineer, in which capacity he was able 
to study the humours of military life better 
than by the book, he made his debuts at the Varietes in 
1866. With this theatre he has been more or less connected 
during his long career in Paris. He has played leading parts 
in many successful pieces of light frame-work, but in which 
the Parisian spirit effervesced to the bowl's brim. Of these, 
Mam'zelle Nitouche, La Femme a Papa, Le Fiacre 117, may 
be mentioned to revive impressions. M. Baron has also 
played in operetta, and he knows the sensations of theatrical 
management. 

M. Albert Brasseur, who was born in 1862, is the son of 

Brasseur of the Palais-Royal, who founded 

Brasseur *^^ Nouveautes theatre ; consequently, il 

chasse de race. His career has been one of the 

most successful of Paris actors, because he never fails to 



188 France of the French 

amuse those who feel the need of laughing. These are 
probably about ninety per cent, of the population of the 
world. The man who can make his contemporaries laugh, 
and uses the gift sagaciously, holds popularity in the palm of 
his hand. It is a more direct road to fortune than that 
marked out by any other kind of genius. If life is a vaude- 
ville, M. Brasseur has thoroughly caught the spirit of the 
piece. 

M. Germain has been connected with the Paris stage some 
forty-five years, and has contributed to the success of numerous 
vaudevilles. M. Dieudonne, a veteran come- 
Other Players, dian (born in 1836), was for twenty years 
connected with the Vaudeville, but in later 
years he has appeared on the stage of various theatres. 

Among other well-known players on the Paris stage, are 
Mesdames Fayolle, Bertiny, Samary (sister of the late Mile. 
Jeanne Samary), Archainbaud, Avril, Beryl, Bonnet, Brezil, 
Burty, Carlix, Caron, Chassaing, Dierterle, Nancy Martel, 
Fleury, Gallois, Lacombe, Lender, Magnier, Megard, and 
Sisos ; MM. E. Duquesne, T. Barral, J. Fenoux, L. Bremont, 
A. Calmette, E. Conde, L. Decori, L. Delaunay, Desjardins, 
P. Fugere, J. Galipaux, P. Garnier, G. G. Guy, F. Huguenet, 
G. Noblet, and A. Tarride. 

M. Andre Antoine is not a great actor, but he is so energetic, 

so full of ideas, and his influence upon the stage under the 

Republic has been so strong that considerable 

^* ^"t^"^ prominence must be given to his personality 

Theatre-Libre, i^ ^^Y retrospect of theatrical life and its 

movements in France during the last quarter 

of a century. The beginning of his career was humble and 

fraught with difficulty. He was born in 1859, ^^ Limoges, 

where his father was a shoemaker, but not one of those who 

are prepared to supply the world with boots, and who build 

for themselves mansions with many turrets. At an early 

age the boy set forth from home and searched for a living. 

He went to Paris, where he danced on waxed floors with a 




Photo by 



Boyer 



MME. JEANNE GRANIER 



Players 189 

frotteur's brushes on his feet, rubbed brass plates, and did 
other work that did not seem to point to the destiny that 
awaited him. Like most youths fresh from the provinces, 
Antoine felt all the magnetic attraction of the theatre, but 
he had to stay outside, longing as a hungry child does with 
nose flattened against the window of a pastrycook, until 
one day a friend who had happy thoughts, told him how he 
might see the inside of the Theatre-Frangais without paying. 
Some young '' supers " were wanted there ; Why not apply ? 
Both applied, and they were taken on. Thus Antoine was 
able to study closely, Got, Mounet-Sully, Coquelin, and other 
great people of the famous house. There he discovered 
that his destiny linked him to the stage, but he had to sur- 
mount prodigious difficulties before he became an actor. 
After five years' military service he was a clerk in Paris, 
on £6 a month, when he was taken one night to an amateur 
theatrical club, the Cercle Gaulois, whose members exhibited 
their histrionic talent to their friends in a building roughly 
knocked together with deal planks, and to which they had 
given the unassuming name of the Theatre de I'Elysee des 
Beaux Arts. These players did not venture beyond well- 
known comedies and vaudevilles. " Why not new pieces ? " 
asked Antoine. '' Ah ! if you know any," was the reply. 
The energetic young man had a bright idea. He would try 
to obtain the help of known authors, and induce them to 
write short pieces for this gimcrack theatre, which, he was 
convinced, would work out a splendid destiny if it were given 
a chance. His enthusiasm gained for him what he wanted. 
A start was made with four short but new pieces, two of 
the authors being Paul Alexis and Leon Hennique. Antoine 
was appointed stage manager, and he was also allowed to 
take the financial risk upon himself. He fixed the date of 
the performance on the last day of the month when, his 
150 francs being due, he would be able to meet the expenses. 
Invitations were sent out to all the critics and notable people 
in Paris interested in theatricals. Some of the leading 



190 France of the French 

critics actually responded. The next day Antoine's original 
experiment was the gossip of the Boulevard. Emile Bergerat, 
writing in the Figaro, described the wooden theatre as " Le 
petit Odeon," meaning by this that it would open the door 
to new talent, and inspire fresh departures. It certainly 
did so, but under the name of the Theatre-Libre, and no 
longer as a building of planks. For several years the attention 
of Paris was fixed upon it, and the scandals that arose from 
the production of ultra-realistic pieces under the auspices 
of M. Antoine, now a Parisian celebrity, had much to do 
with this success. The stage of the Theatre-Libre was 
intended to be a revolutionary one in a dramatic sense. The 
pieces produced were not always objectionable, but not a 
few were quite subversive of morals and decency of expression. 
The crudity of language startled even the boulevardiers. 
The abuses of this freedom wore themselves out, but the 
impulse given by the Theatre-Libre in the direction of fresh- 
ness and originality remained. It should also be noted that 
the Theatre-Libre, which became the Theatre- Antoine of 
to-day, did much to arouse curiosity and interest in the 
modern dramatic movements of other countries, for example, 
Ibsenism. M. Antoine is now director of the Odeon ; conse- 
quently, there was something prophetic in the name that 
M. Bergerat gave to the little wooden theatre. 



CHAPTER XI 

MUSICIANS AND SINGERS 

But for foreign influence, French music would have made no 
brilHant figure on the lyric stage of the world, for it distinctly 
lacks a quality that may be termed national. 
^usiT^ Even in the way of songs and ballads, the 
country in the course of centuries has 
produced very little national music, although in various 
provinces old popular airs with a charm and character of their 
own have lingered ; but these bear the provincial mark, 
not the national one, and the words are mostly in the local 
dialect. The old religious music, those Christmas hymns, 
for example, called Noels, and of which the origin in some 
cases is very remote and obscure, is more in the sentiment 
perhaps of national music than any other, because these 
airs when they had struck a distinct note of feeling that 
awakened interest or stimulated piety, were spread far 
and wide by the religious communities, secular clergy, 
and pilgrims, who were alone capable of creating sym- 
pathies in common between distant provinces in the far-off 
times. 

As regards French opera, or the lyric drama, there is little 
to be said of it prior to the nineteenth century, although as 
a musical curiosity of the eighteenth century, J. J. Rousseau's 
Devin du Village was produced not long since on the 
Paris stage. Lulli, who was a power until Gliick 
eclipsed him on his own ground, was long ago forgotten, 
except by searchers in books. Speaking generally, French 
opera has always swayed between German and Italian 
influence. 

In 1870 the works of Berlioz (1803-1869) were still 
popular, and his best known productions, for example, 

191 



192 France of the French 

La Damnation de Faust and Romeo et Juliette, have not 
yet been packed away in the old curiosity museum of music. 

The most popular work by Georges Bizet 
^°%''perl?"''^ (1838-1875), Carmen, was not produced until 

1875. It was the song of the swan. Bizet 
ranks as a great musician, and France can claim him entirely. 
Ambroise Thomas (1811-1896), composer of Mignon, Hamlet, 
Frangoise de Rimini, etc., and Charles Gounod (1818-1893), 
whose greatest work for the lyric stage is Faust, produced in 
1859, also maintained under the Republic the traditions of 
what may be termed the French school, although the growing 
influence of Wagner (1813-1883) was a great disturber of 
ideas and aims. 

This influence would have been far stronger than it was in 
France during the first twenty years that followed the war, 

but for the deep resentment of the French 

Influence of towards the great innovator ; not merely 

Wagner. because he was a Gefman, but much more 

because of certain letters that he wrote, and 
which were printed, about the Gallic people when they were 
in the throes of the sanguinary struggle. If the French are 
ardent lovers, they are also very strong haters. For a good 
many years Wagner's influence could only enter France by 
stealth. Even as late as 1891, an attempt to produce 
Lohengrin in Paris was met by a cabal that the Govern- 
ment thought so serious, in the sense that it might give rise 
to a diplomatic incident, that the piece was withdrawn, after 
a very exciting first night. When Parisians of to-day think 
of this, they realize what great changes have taken place 
in themselves in less than two decades. Wagner is now 
received in the city with all the honour due to his genius. 
The memory of Gounod calls for more than a passing notice. 

His operas do not by any means comprise the 
Gouno^d work of his life. In him were two very distinct 

currents : one that expressed itself freely 
in aU the voluptuous emotions of profane art, the other 



Musicians and Singers 193 

that found its voice only in religious sentiment and mysticism. 

One side of his nature revelled in all the sensations of the 

stage, the other remained that of the religious enthusiast 

which made him in his youth a disciple of Lacordaire and a 

theological student at the Seminary of St. Sulpice. His 

oratorios and other sacred music rank with the most widely 

appreciated work of this class of composition that the 

nineteenth century has bequeathed. It is only necessary 

to mention La Redemption and Mors et Vita for these works 

to call up ample recollections among English-speaking people. 

Of the later composers who have thrown lustre upon the 

French lyric stage, must be mentioned in the first place M. 

Jules Massenet, who was born in 1842. Very 

M. Jules prolific and industrious, his list of works is 
Massenet. ^ 

a long one. Manon, produced m 1885 at 

the Opera Comique, is probably the opera most calculated 

to have a long life among those that he has given us. It is 

remarkably vivacious and human, and is in keeping with the 

best traditions of comic opera — which is not comic in the 

ordinary sense of the word. M. Massenet's work takes in 

a wide range of style and subject, as may be judged by the 

titles of some of his principal operas : Les Erynnies, Le Roi 

de Lahore, Herodiade, Le Cid, Werther, Thais, and Sapho. 

Cherubin, produced in 1905, is not one of his best. M. 

Massenet must be given the leading position among the li'v"'ng 

musical composers of France. He is a professor at the 

Conservatoire. 

In the opinion of many, M. Camille Saint-Saens, who v/as 

born in Paris in 1835, is the foremost of 
S*' t's"^'^'^^^ living musicians. That he is a master of 

musical science, consummately skilled in 
all things appertaining to technique, must be granted without 
any hesitation ; but if the object of music be to stir and 
express the deep human passions as well as the more delicate 
and cultivated emotions, M. Camille Saint-Saens lacks 
something essential to the fulfilment of the ideal. He reflects 
13— (2398) 



194 France of the French 

the dilettanist movement in music. The predominating influ- 
ence upon him, after BerHoz, has been that of Wagner, but 
he has never approached the elevation of the great German. 
Bizet, had he not been struck down so early in life, might 
have stemmed this Wagnerian current in France, which 
responds far less to the national character than the " Latin 
Lyrical Drama," the spirit of which was so well caught up 
by the composer of Carmen and V Arlesienne, but to which 
he lent a fresh and vibrating individuality. Among the 
later works of M. Saint-Saens are the following operas : 
Samson et Dalila, Phryne, Fredegonde, Les Barbares, and 
Helena et Paris (1904). 

The musical composers of operetta have been dealt with 
to the extent compatible with the scope of this work under 
the heading " Dramatists." 

Although he was not a composer for the lyric stage, Cesar 

Franck (1822-1890) was a musician who must be placed in 

the front rank of those who have cast lustre 

Cesar Franck. upon the arts in France under the Republic. 
A Belgian by birth, he became a natural- 
ized Frenchman in 1870. He produced the oratorio Ruth 
so far back as 1846, but his fame rests chiefly upon his much 
later works : La Redemption, Les Beatitudes, Rebecca, and 
Psyche. By their originality, their science, and the elevation 
of their sentiment, his compositions, which include many 
short pieces coming within the category of " musique de 
chambre," have won unbounded admiration from competent 
critics. For many years Cesar Franck was the organist at 
the Church of Sainte-Clo tilde, in Paris. 

Leo Delibes (1836-1891) was the composer of La Sourcey 

Coppelia, Sylvia, and Lakme, works deficient in colour, 

but with a certain graceful lightness not 

Leo Delibes. without charm. Lakme, which was produced 

in 1883 at the Opera-Comique, had a long run 

of success with Mile. Marie Van Zandt in the title role. 

M. Andre Messager, who was born in 1853, ranks prominently 




Photo by 



Pierre Petit 



M. JULES MASSENET 



Musicians and Singers 195 

with the composers of light opera. Among his later works 

M. Andre are La Basoche, Madame Chrysantheme, and 

Messager. Miss Dollar. 

The late Edouard Lalo (1823-1892) is chiefly remembered 

by his successful light opera, Le Roi d'Ys, produced in 1888. 

M. Gustave Charpentier, who was born in 

Other composers, ^g^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^ ^^^ position among the 

younger musical composers since the production of his 
opera Louise in 1900. 

Among others who have earned distinction as musical 
composers, and whose influence is more or less felt by the 
contemporary life of France, are MM. Th^dore Dubois 
{Xaviere, 1895, etc.) ; Alfred Bruenau {Messidor, VOuragaUy 
etc.) ; Paul Vidal {Les Bourgondes, 1901) ; Vincent d'Indy 
(Wallenstein, Le Chant de la Cloche) ; Gabriel Faure, Xavier 
Leroux {Astarte, 1901) ; Victor Masse (1822-1884), composer 
of the still popular comic opera; Les Noces de Jeannette ; 
Benjamin Goddard (1849-1895) ; Ernest Reyer (1823), the 
composer of Salammbo ; and Madame Augusta Holmes, who 
is one of the very few instances of a woman attaining eminence 
as a musical composer. Her talent has been made use of on 
official occasions. 

France is not a land of song like Italy, nor even like 
Germany. Speaking generally, the French voice is rather 
thin. Considering what encouragement is 
ingers. offered by the State to the cultivation of 
vocal music, better results would have been obtained had 
the gift of song been more distributed among the people. 
The province, however, has much to do with the singing 
disposition and power to be found among the inhabitants. 
This is easily explained by differences of racial origin. In 
Languedoc, especially in Toulouse and the surrounding 
country, strong and rich- toned voices, often with a magnificent 
timbre are common, and this district has been much drawn 
upon for the l5n:ic stage. Among its singers of note, Toulouse 
can claim Capoul the tenor. 



196 France of the French 

Although the official designation of the Paris Op6ra is 
" L' Academic Nationale de Musique," to maintain its position 
it is obliged to have recourse to vocal talent other than 
French. The same holds good with regard to the Opera- 
Comique, which is also a subventioned house. It is usual, 
however, for singers who aim at being engaged at either of 
these establishments to receive some training in France. 

The following are among the principal singers who have 
been intimately associated either with the Paris Opera or 
the Opera-Comique in recent years : — 

Mesdames Emma Calve (born at Madrid in 1864), Rose 
Caron (born near Paris in 1857), Aino Ackt6, Pauline Agussol, 
Laure Beauvais, Lucy Berthet, Rosa Bosman, Br6jean- 
Silver, Carrere-Zanroff, Chretien- Vaguet, M. de Craponne, 
Marie Delna, Deschamps-Jehin, Mary Garden, Julia 
Guiraudon, Louise Grand] ean, Jeanne Hatto, M. Heglon, 
Landouzy, Lureau-Escalais, Jane Marcy, Jane Mariquau, 
Juliette Pierron, Sibyl Sanderson, and Cecile Simonnet. 
Messieurs A. Affre, M. Chambon, F. Clement, L. Delaquerriere, 
J. Delmas, Pierre Engel, R. Fournets, L. Fougere, A. Gresse, 
Imbart de la Tour, Marechal, Victor Maurel, J. Note, G. 
Soulacroix, and A. Vaguet. 

Singers of foreign origin have in some cases changed their 
names for others more French to the eye and ear. 



CHAPTER XII 

SCIENCE AND INVENTION 

The lamp that France has held aloft in the vast, mysterious, 

and shadowy forest haunted by the uncaptured truths of 

nature, has during the last half century been 

The Battle one of the most brilliant and searching. 

with Death. It has flashed new and strong ideas upon the 
mind of man, while increasing the comfort 
or mitigating the suffering of humanity. In no other period 
of the world's history has science done so much for mankind, 
especially in preventing disease and combating death — not 
conquering, but in prevailing upon this hard creditor, who 
will have his money sooner or later, to renew his bill and 
thus postpone the inevitable settlement. 

Pasteur and Lister are two names that will always be 
linked together by the fact that their great work, directed 
along two parallel lines towards one object — that of saving 
life — has been of more far-reaching benefit to humanity than 
all else revealed and demonstrated in the previous history 
of science. If Lister, by promulgating the doctrine of the 
antiseptic treatment of wounds, whether accidental or the 
result of surgical operations, has been such a benefactor to 
the race, it was the light that broke on him from Pasteur's 
researches and discoveries that made him a scientific 
revolutionist. The prodigious advance of modern surgery 
upon the domain of disease has not been brought about by 
increased skill in the use of instruments, but by the science 
of vanquishing germs of death in the form of micro-organisms. 
The surgeon goes to work with so bold and sure a hand to-day 
because so much of the old risk of complications from septic 
poisoning has been removed. The pernicious microbe was 
isolated by Pasteur, after which the object to be aimed at 
was to render its access to a wound impossible. 

197 



198 France of the French 

It is no small glory to be the pioneer among nations in 
this science of bacteriology, which has revealed a new world 
of research in relation to the prevention of disease, and has 
already rescued a multitude of lives from the grasp of frightful 
disorders ; it is a glory that France owes to the biological 
chemist, Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), a man of the most 
simple life and modest character. He was constantly humble 
before the great problems of the Infinite, which science can 
never solve, while he endeavoured to unlock with the key 
of patience chambers microscopically small, yet holding 
what his penetrating intellect told him were levers of most 
compelling power to move away many a heavy load and 
perplexing enigma from the mind of man. 

The French have much more of the scientific temper of 
mind than those who judge them by exteriors — and these 
the most accessible — are apt to suppose. 
I fSte"^ '^^^ space that even frivolous journals give 
to reports of the proceedings of the Academy 
of Sciences is an indication of this, but what is still more so is 
the splendour of the scientific institutions of France, and what 
the large and small museums scattered all over the country 
reveal of private interest, research, and industry, the fruits 
of which are at length made over to the public. But the 
most important of all scientific institutions, on account of the 
influence that continues to radiate from it and the work that 
it has already done, is the Pasteur Institute. It cannot but 
be regarded as the alma mater of bacteriologists, not only on 
account of the name of its illustrious founder which it bears, 
and whose tomb is in its crypt, but because it may be said to 
centralize the activity of the human mind in this particular field 
of research. Here the work of the great chemist and biologist 
is continued by disciples trained in his school, and who with 
the patience of alchemists, but with an ideal immeasurably 
higher than theirs, search for the clues that science knows 
to exist, and which when found may break down the most 
solid ramparts of the diseases that chiefi}^ afflict the world. 



Science and Invention 199 

On the death of Pasteur in 1895, Dr. Pierre Roux (1853) 
was appointed Director of the Pasteur Institute, the first in 
the order of succession to the founder. For 
Dr. oux. years previously he had been the trusty 
assistant of the man who had conquered rabies after proving 
the impossibility of spontaneous generation, rescuing from 
poverty thousands of people in Southern France dependent 
upon the silk-worm industry, and showing how the diseases 
of fermented liquors might be met by destroying the micro- 
organisms which are the cause of them. As Pasteur had 
never gone through the course of medicine and taken a 
degree, because as a scientific chemist he had no motive for 
doing so, he could not legally perform even the simple 
operation of injecting under the skin the vaccine of rabies. 
He therefore needed a medical assistant, and Roux, who 
had aided him in his laboratory at the Ecole Normale, before 
taking his doctor's degree, performed many operations 
afterwards under the eye of Pasteur, during the period when 
the world's faith was not yet fixed upon the value of the 
treatment. After the foundation of the Institute, while 
assisting the founder, he took up an independent position 
by his researches in bacteriology. Thus, in 1894, he was able 
to announce that he had discovered, thanks to Behring's 
and his own labour along the same line of investigation, a 
preventive and curative serum for diphtheria and croup, 
which are caused by the same microbe. It is needless to 
dweU upon the importance of this discovery to the world. 
France benefited probably in the largest measure, because 
croup had long been one of the most frequent and malignant 
of the diseases of children throughout the country. Mortality 
from this cause has since been reduced to a figure of relatively 
small importance. Dr. Roux has also given much attention 
to the microbe of tetanus, and his researches in connection 
with it have led to the adoption of a serum in the curative 
treatment of this fell disorder. The use of serums as distinct 
from vaccines (the attenuated virus) in the war with diseases 



200 France of the French 

which have been traced to a microbe or bacillus, is largely 
due to Dr. Roux's method of using hypodermically in the 
treatment of diphtheria the serous part of the blood of horses 
which have been rendered by inoculation proof against the 
disease. In 1903 the Institute of France awarded Dr. Roux 
the Osiris prize of ^^4,000. 

The Pasteur Institute, being founded on a wide and liberal 
basis, is open to students and investigators of all nations. 

Dr. E. Metchnikoff (1855), who has been 

Metchnikoff working there for years, and whose experi- 

and Marmorek. ments upon apes of the chimpanzee tribe 

have attracted the attention of the scientific 
world, is a Russian, while the Austrian, Alexander Marmorek, 
another Pastorian identified with Paris, has produced anti- 
tuberculous and antistreptococcic serums, the value of which 
has not yet been determined. 

Dr. Andre Chantemesse (1851), a high sanitary authority 
in France, studied at the Pasteur Institute, and afterwards 

in the laboratories of Koch and Bollinger. 
Dr. Chantemesse. j^^ ^^^ ^^^^ important bacteriological 

researches in connection with epidemic dysentery and the 
infection of water by the microbes of disease, especially of 
typhoid. He has, moreover, proved that flies are exceedingly 
active agents in the transmission of epidemics, notably 
cholera. He has produced an antityphic serum, the efficacy 
of which remains at present somewhat doubtful. 

One of the younger bacteriologists of note is Dr. Yersin, 
who was born in Switzerland (1865) and became a naturalised 
Frenchman after studying in Pasteur's 
Dr. Yersin. laboratory. He discovered the bacillus, 
which is supposed to be that of bubonic plague, almost 
simultaneously with Kitwasato, who was working quite 
independently. Yersin's serum for the treatment of this 
frightful disorder, when tried in China, is said to have reduced 
the mortality from 75 to 48 per cent. If these figures are 
accepted, the saving of life is very important, but there 




Photo by 



Pierre Petit 



DR. ROUX 



Science and Invention 201 

remains plenty of scope for increasing the efficacy of the 
serum. 

Dr. E. L. Doyen (1859) is a professional surgeon rather 
than a bacteriologist, but having taken up the position of a 

specialist in cancer, he was led to pursue 

Dr. Doyen independent researches and experiments with 

Cancer. ^ view to isolating the microbe of cancer, 

and proceeding thence in accordance with 
the principles of bacteriological science, as already determined 
by experiments, to the production of a curative serum or 
vaccine. He isolated a bacillus which he maintains to be 
that of cancer, and which he has named micrococcus neo- 
formans. From attenuated cultures of this virus he produced 
a vaccine, not a serum, although it is often so termed, and 
he inoculated cancerous patients with it. The results of this 
treatment have been the subject of much difference of opinion 
and envenomed discussion. In the present year (1908) Dr. 
Doyen made a communication to the Biological Society in 
Paris in support of his theory concerning the parasitic origin 
and processus of cancer. After referring to Dr. Metchnikoff' s 
researches and discoveries concerning phagocytic cells in the 
human organism, whose function is to defend it from the 
infectious invasion of noxious germs by absorbing these, he 
stated that in studying the microbe of cancer he perceived 
that it was not absorbed by the phagocytic cell itself, but by 
its nucleus, which rapidly digested it. This led him to make 
further investigation concerning the cancerous cell itself, 
and by employing the process known as coupes d V argent, he 
became convinced that it was in the nucleus of this cell that 
the microbe was lodged. Thus invaded, the normal cells 
developed abnormally, substituting themselves for the 
healthy tissue they destroyed. He concluded : (i) That 
nuclei of cells play an active part in whatever relates to 
bacteriology ; (2) That cancer is a parasitic disease that 
commences in the nuclei of the normal cells, thus explaining 
that anarchy in the development of cells so characteristic of 



202 France of the French 

the disease. If this view of the mechanism of cancer, as well 
as of the action of the defensive cells be correct, one may be 
permitted to hope that the bacteriologist is already far on 
the road towards the defeat and annihilation of the pesti- 
ferous germ whose ravages upon human life are increasing 
yearly in all classes of society. 

An ardent and active worker in the field of biological 

research is Dr. Calmette, director of the Pasteur Institute at 

Lille. He has given special study to the 

B ct riolo ists pi"^^^^^ ^f finding an an ti -tuberculous remedy 

based on attenuated or modified virus of 

the tuberculous bacillus administered not subcutaneously, 

but by the digestive channel. He is also studying the 

ophthalmo-diagnosis of tuberculous deposit, by which the 

earliest warning of danger is said to be obtainable. 

Others are pursuing researches with the same object — 
the conquest of tuberculous disease, the ravages of which 
have greatly increased in France of late years, especially in 
large centres of population and along the Northern and 
Western seaboard. Prominent among these scientists is 
Professor Arloing, who at the Veterinary School of Lyons 
has been carrying out important experiments upon calves 
with tuberculous vaccine, or serum. At Alfort, Professor 
Vallee is experimenting with the bovo-vaccine of Behring, 
or rather, he is endeavouring to improve upon it so that the 
effect shall be durable. Both these investigators have 
received grants from the fund (Caisse des Recherches 
Scientifiques), which was founded in 1907, when Parliament 
voted a sum of £9,000 for the furtherance of scientific 
enquiry. 

The efforts of Dr. Gustave Martin in Africa, to discover by 
bacteriological science an efficacious means of treating the 
sleeping sickness, which has become such a scourge in vast 
regions of the Congo, should also be mentioned. In fact, 
on all sides the zeal and energy of the French as practical 
biologists is remarkable. 



Science and Invention 203 

The contamination of rivers and streams having become 
a very great evil in France, gravely affecting the public health 
as well as threatening to bring about the total destruction 
of fish in many districts, Dr. Calmette, M. Miintz, of the 
Academy of Sciences, and M. Trouard-Riolle, director of the 
important School of Agriculture at Grignon, are studying in 
common the problem of destroying the noxious properties 
of drainage water, as well as that which issues from many 
factories and works. A sum of 5^3,400 has been granted 
from the fund already mentioned in furtherance of these 
researches. 

Claude Bernard (1813-1878) scarcely belongs to the epoch 

of which this book especially treats, and yet he was a pioneer 

„, . , of modern physiological science ; his 

Physiology. , ^ . , ^ -^ . ^ . . 

influence is strong m many a laboratory to- 

Claude (^ay and upon the mind of many a searcher 
Bernar . -^^^ natural phenomena. Claude Bernard 
went far to revolutionize the science of medicine. His 
scepticism concerning the empirical system of the healing 
art commenced when as a chemist's assistant at Lyons, his 
employer, who had a good deal of veterinary practice, told 
him to keep all the horse drugs that were not used or had 
gone bad, for these when mixed with other pharmaceutical 
refuse would make a perfect theriaque — an antidote for 
poisons and hydrophobia, as well as a remedy for all sorts of 
internal disturbances. Bernard resolved thenceforth to 
accept nothing on faith. By what arduous efforts he won 
all the honours obtainable from medicine and physiology 
cannot be related here. The fact to be borne in mind is that 
he was the pioneer in France of modern experimental 
medicine based on a more intimate knowledge of normal 
and pathological physiology. More than any other man 
he rendered medicine and surgery tributary to vivisection. 
Paul Bert (1833-1886), whose name is hateful to anti- 
vivisectionists, was his disciple. 

In regard to metaphysics, Claude Bernard was not arrogant 



204 France of the French 

or dogmatic. His business, he said, was to determine all 
that was determinable from phenomena in the physical 
order, and he maintained that it did not belong to the domain 
of science to search for primary causes. He described his 
method as the negation of all systems, and simply the science 
of ascending to the proximate causes of phenomena in relation 
to healthy and also morbid states. 

In chemistry, distinct from bacteriology, the intellect 

of Marcelin Berthelot (1827-1907) was the most searching 

Chemistry. ^^^ revolutionary of France during the 

nineteenth century. Such were the services 

Berthelot. ■j-j^a.t he rendered the industrial arts by the 
application of experiments made in his laboratory, that had 
he taken out patents for the commercial working of his 
discoveries, he might easily have amassed a colossal fortune. 
But a man of really scientific genius is rarely a man of business, 
and with Berthelot's passion for disentangling the mysterious 
combinations of substances, building them up again, and 
composing new combinations was mingled no craving for 
money. It was in building up with the results of analysis 
that the greatness of his scientific achievements chiefly lay. 
The title of his work, published in i860. Organic Chemistry 
founded on Synthesis^ already indicated the direction of 
his efforts, which were destined to produce a vast revolution 
in the chemical laboratory. Like Claude Bernard, Berthelot 
was a clear and forcible writer, as well as a man of science, 
and his contributions to the literature of subjects that 
interested him are very important. He thus defines the two 
spheres in chemistry of synthesis and analysis : " The special 
function of synthesis is to make us understand the general 
laws which govern chemical combinations. Judged from 
this point of view, it reveals a peculiar fecundity. In fact, 
whereas analysis necessarily confines itself to natural 
composite bodies and their derivatives, synthesis proceeding 
by virtue of a generative law, produces not only natural 
substances, which are particular cases in the operation of 



Science and Invention 205 

this law, but also an infinite number of other substances 

which would never have existed in nature." Guided by 

this reasoning, and the results of experiments, Berthelot 

gave to the science of chemistry a creative function under 

the action of human intelligence such as it had never before 

known. His chemical aniline dyes soon beat the vegetable 

dyes out of the field, to the great loss of the madder growers 

in Southern France ; but what is gain to one industry is 

generally loss to another. The benefit to the public was 

undoubted. By the artificial production of organic bodies, 

Berthelot brought a new life into various trades, even that 

of the perfumer, who learnt from him how to counterfeit 

the breath of flowers. He showed the rapid way to reach 

objects that could only be otherwise attained by long and 

toilsome journeys. He enriched the pharmacopoeia also 

with fresh drugs which were the result of his synthetic method. 

He is largely responsible for the new medicines that vv^ork 

mysteriously upon heart and brain and nervous system, and 

to which strange names that tell nothing, except to those 

familiar with the arcana of the modern laboratory, have been 

given. 

The disasters that befell his country in 1870 led Berthelot 

to place his science at the service of the Government in the 

manufacture of new explosives. In this 

The New ^ -j^q came to be the principal instrument 
Explosives. -^ 11 , 1 

of the mighty change that has taken place 

during the last thirty years in the explosive agents used 

by the armaments of the world, and of which the new weapons 

were to a large extent the adaptation of mechanical science 

to a fresh chemical power. The black gunpowder which 

had done service in all the battles of Europe since Crecy, and 

whose smoke added much to the picturesque terrors of war, 

was by the wizard Berthelot changed to smokeless powder. 

Its adoption by the French Government was the beginning 

of the revolution in explosives. 

In one of his gay humours, towards the close of his life, 



206 France of the French 

Berthelot predicted, half seriously, that the great food 
problem which to so many people is an exceedingly trying 
one, would one day find its solution in 
The Food chemistry. A tablet cunningly composed of 
Problem Solved carbon derived from carbonic acid, hydrogen 
by Tablets. taken from water with azote and oxygen, bor- 
rowed from the atmosphere, so conveniently 
small as to be easily carried in the waistcoat pocket, would 
amply suffice for a man's daily nourishment. One cannot help 
thinking that if this system were tried in France, we should 
hear more about creux de Vestomac than we do at present. 
Berthelot was also the founder of thermo-chemistry, 
which may be briefly described as the science of estimating 
the energy of movement in atoms, or 
Thermo- molecules, during action or reaction, by the 
amount of heat set free, or absorbed. Thus 
heat and motion have become to the chemist synonymous 
terms. In philosophy, Berthelot was a Positivist, but of 
somewhat broader ideas than those of Auguste Comte. His 
funeral was a civil one, and he was given sepulture at the 
Pantheon, which bears on its frieze the words " Aux grands 
hommes la Patrie reconnaissante." Mme. Berthelot, who 
had been his constant companion for so many years, and who 
died only a few days before himself, was allowed a place in the 
same crypt, in obedience to a sentiment that commands respect. 
The precedent, however, may raise difficulties hereafter. 

The series of great discoveries in chemistry and allied 
biology, which gave such splendour to the scientific movement 
in the second half of the nineteenth century, 
Pierre Curie was enriched with yet another that came 
and Mme. Curie, almost at its close, like the brilliant corrusca- 
tion of a luminous epoch that was passing 
away. It was in 1898 that Pierre Curie (1859-1906), proceed- 
ing by the analysis of uranic radiations in collaboration with 
his wife, discovered two new metals, polonium and radium. 
M. Curie was a scientific chemist. His earliest researches. 




Photo by 



Pirou 



MME. CURIE 



Science and Invention 207 

relating to crystallized bodies, were carried on jointly with 
his brother, M. Paul Curie (1855), also a chemist. In 1880 
Pierre Curie discovered the phenomena of piezo-electricity, 
and on the occasion of his receiving his doctor's degree 
(sciences) in 1895, he presented a memorandum on the 
magnetic properties of bodies at various temperatures. 
After the discovery of polonium and radium, he devoted all 
the time that his duties as Professor of General Physics at 
the Ecole de Physique et de Chimie left him to the ardent 
investigation of the radio-activity of the two mysterious 
and allied substances which had placed the scientific world 
in possession of a new energy, the nature of which is not yet 
well understood. He was also the inventor of several 
scientific instruments of value in the laboratory. The life 
of Pierre Curie, so intensely concentrated upon the latent 
forces of nature, and so full of promise of further great 
discoveries, was suddenly extinguished by the wheel of a 
waggon in a Paris street in the spring of 1906. His mind 
being doubtless absorbed by the problems of the new science 
which he had presented in all the nakedness of its birth to 
the world, he overlooked the trivial daily need of watching 
over his own body, and before any one had time to stop the 
horse that was the immediate, but irresponsible, cause of the 
disaster, the man who had given such a mighty shock to 
scientific principles and " laws " supposed to be fixed in 
nature, was annihilated by a little brute force. 

The salts with which radium is combined having been 
purified, the atomic weight of the element itself has been 
ascertained. While the mystery of its origin and purpose 
in nature has not yet been cleared up, researches and 
experiments in connection with radio-activity and its 
applications are pursued in France, as elsewhere, with 
eager yet patient assiduity. 

Madame Curie (Marie Sklodowska) was born at Warsaw in 
1867, and like so many other Pohsh women of superior 
intellect, came to Paris to study. She had a passion for 



208 France of the French 

chemistry, and she studied at the Sorbonne with brilliant 
results. She was, therefore, well equipped to assist the man 
whom she married, and whose zeal to penetrate the mystery 
of the radiations of uranium (a metal found in certain clay), 
discovered by Becquerel in 1896, she fully shared. Their 
long work of patient observation and manipulation in the 
laboratory was rewarded with results already stated. Curie 
gave his wife full and equal credit with himself for what 
they had accomplished in common. After the discovery 
she obtained the degree of Doctor of Sciences. In 1903 the 
Nobel Prize for science was divided between M. and Mme. 
Curie and Becquerel. After the death of her husband, a chair 
at the Sorbonne was created for Mme. Curie — the first time 
that such an honour in connection with the higher studies had 
been bestowed upon a vv^oman in France. 

There is little to be said of the late Henri Becquerel (1852- 

1908) beyond what has been stated in the preceding remarks 

on M. and Mme. Curie. He was a man who 

Henri lived a very retired and simple life, devoted 

to the study of natural science. His early 

training was that of a civil engineer, and he followed this 

profession for some time. His intense interest in natural 

phenomena led him to make important researches respecting 

atmospheric polarization and the influence of terrestrial 

magnetism on the atmosphere. Then his attention was 

absorbed by the problem presented by the radio-activity 

of certain bodies, which led to the discovery of uranium. 

He had been appointed life-secretary to the Academy of 

Sciences not long before his death. 

By the stereo-chemistry of Lebel and Van FHoff, based 

upon the atomic conception of bodies and what has been 

described as the " veritable architecture of 

Ch ^*-^J^°' 4. molecules," the exact knowledge of the 

chemical constituents of various natural 

bodies has facilitated the production by synthesis of such 

substances as sugar and indigo. These processes are becoming 



Science and Invention 209 

more and more identified with manufactures, and we may be 
getting near the time when they will be applied to the chemical 
constitution of foods to an extent that at present appears 
fantastic. 

The liquefaction of gases has been mainly realized by the 
researches and experiments of the French chemists, Armagat, 
Cailet, and Pictet. 

Although France cannot take credit for the greatest 
discoveries in connection with electricity, it must be remem- 
bered that A. M. Ampere (1775-1836), the 

Electricity and chemist and mathematician, broue^ht a very 
Electro- • . ^ o ^ 

Chemistry. penetrating intellect to bear upon electro- 
dynamic phenomena, as well as upon those 
of electro-magnetism, and that his treatises went far to clear 
the way towards those various applications of dynamic 
electricity which have produced such prodigious changes 
in modern life. His name is currently employed for the 
measurement of electro-dynamic force, in connection with 
which he established a code. 

In the practical application of the principles laid down 
by Ampere, Marcel Deprez figures prominently as a pioneer. 
His experiments in connection with the transmission of 
electric energy based upon Gramme's dynamo did much 
to further the utilization of water-power for the lighting of 
towns, etc., and the distribution of motor force by electricity. 

Electrolysis, a more recently discovered field for the 
application of electricity to industrial purposes, is largely 
the result of the chemist Moissan's experiments with Violle's 
electric stove. By its means he was able to obtain a large 
number of new bodies and to greatly simplify preparations 
from various metals. Electrolysis appears destined to play 
an important part in the cheapening of certain natural 
products. For example, aluminium by its means has been 
separated from the minerals with which it is commonly 
combined, and has thus been brought within easy reach of 
the manufacturer. Copper is also being produced by a 
14— {2398) 



210 France of the French 

similar process. By another application of the same 
principles complex bodies are formed. 

In mathematics and astronomy, passing over such 

celebrated Frenchmen, belonging to the early or middle part 

of the nineteenth century, as Fran9ois Arago 

Mathematics (1786-1853) and Urbain Le Verrier (1811- 
and Astronomy. 1877), we come to the names of four notable 
men whose work belongs to the period with 
which this work is especially designed to deal, namely, Felix 
Tisserand, J. H. Poincare, Pierre Janssen and Camille 
Flammarion. The first, Tisserand (1845-1896), not only 
rendered valuable service to science by the light he threw 
upon the method of ascertaining the comparative substanti- 
ality of celestial bodies, he was also a lucid and attractive 
writer on subjects of astronomical interest. Tisserand's 
method of calculation, which differed essentially from that 
of Laplace (1749-1827), was only partly known to the pubUc 
during his Hfetime. M. J. H. Poincare (1854) is the most 
distinguished of living Frenchmen in the domain of pure 
mathematics. Among algebraists, his light has been a 
leading one since 1876. He is the author of La Science et 
I'Hypothese (1905). 

Although his name leaves no doubt as to Scandinavian 

origin, the late M. Pierre Janssen was born in Paris in 1824. 

Having earned distinction in connection 

Pierre Janssen. with the physical sciences, he was despatched 

to India in 1868 to observe an eclipse of the 

sun, and his observations led to the discovery of the nature 

of the solar protuberances. During the siege of Paris, he 

left the city in a balloon with the object of observing on 

Algerian soil another eclipse of the sun, and he succeeded in 

carrying out his purpose. In the following year an eclipse 

drew him to Asia, and it was then that he observed a new 

gaseous envelope round the sun, to which he gave the name 

atmosphere coronate. In 1876 he was commissioned by the 

Government to establish an observatory of physical astronomy 



Science and Invention 211 

at Montmartre, but it was soon decided to remove it to 
Meudon, in the vicinity of Paris, where it now occupies the 
site of the old chateau. In 1891 was commenced, under 
his direction, the construction of the small observatory on 
Mont-Blanc with which his name is associated. Here for 
a series of years he spent much time, often during the most^ 
furious Alpine weather. It was an ideal retreat and watch-* 
tower for such a student of the forces of nature. Janssen 
invented an aeronautic compass, which has been of much 
service to balloonists. But, as already indicated, his studies 
were especially directed upon the sun. His solar photographs 
are a unique collection of the highest value. He was the 
author of various scientific treatises and communications 
to the Academy of Sciences. 

M. Camille Flammarion is the most attractive and con- 
sequently the most popular French writer of the day on 
astronomical science. He possesses in a 

M. Camille marked and admirable degree the faculty 

Flammarion. . . - ° .. , . , , / 

of makmg subjects, whicn if left m their 

scientific nakedness would be forbidding to minds that had 

not received the culture constituting a ready-made interest 

in them, captivating to the imagination of all endowed with 

an intelligent curiosity. The fact that M. Flammarion 

combines with the qualities that make an astronomer an 

exceedingly vivid fancy, explains his power over the 

imagination of others, and consequently his literary success. 

No doubt, to the stern and austere scientist, he mingles a 

little too much of the element of romance with his pictures 

of far-away worlds and their possible life, and of possible 

catastrophes in the universe. He may draw too freely upon 

hypothesis, but it should be remembered that his literature 

is not intended for those who have had a scientific training, 

but for the great majority who move outside that small 

circle. Nevertheless, he must not be regarded as a Jules 

Verne among astronomers. All his pictures and theories, 

even his fancies, rest on some basis of ascertained truth. He 



212 France of the French 

knows all that is to be learnt Irom astronomical observations 
up to date. Born in 1842, he became attached to the Paris 
Observatory in 1858, and afterwards passed four years in 
the Bureau des Longitudes, which for abstruse calculations 
is one of the severest of schools. In 1862 appeared La 
Pluralite des Monies Habites, which brought him at once 
in contact with the public, and was the beginning of his 
popularity as a writer. In 1868 he made several balloon 
ascents to study the direction of air currents and hygrometric 
conditions of the atmosphere. In 1880 the Academy awarded 
him the Prix Montyon for his Astronomie Populaire. He 
is an authority on the rotation of planets, and has put forward 
a theory to the effect that this movement is directly related 
to their respective densities. His published works make a 
long list. Among those that have appeared since 1880 are : 
Le Monde avant la Creation de VHomme^ Dans le del et dans 
la Terre, Les Cometes, and Contemplations Scientifiques. 

During the last twenty years exploration in Africa has 
received much encouragement from the French Government, 
and various missions, termed " scientific," 
xp ora ion. j^^^ having also political objects, were 
despatched into regions of the Dark Continent where it 
was held expedient to extend the influence of France. The 
mission of Captain Marchand, who ascended the valley of 
the Congo and reached Fashoda within the watershed of the 
Nile in July, 1898, furnished a dramatic chapter of recent 
diplomatic history. In still later times France has found an 
enthusiastic explorer of the Antarctic regions in Dr. Jean 
Charcot, son of the celebrated specialist in nervous diseases, 
whose experiments on hysterical subjects at the Salpetriere 
Hospital gave so great an impulse to the enquiry concerning 
the phenomena of hypnotism. Dr. Jean Charcot, the 
younger, was born in 1867, and was himself attached to the 
Salpetriere for a while. Then he abandoned the practice 
of medicine and threw himself with extraordinary ardour 
into scientific enquiry respecting the unexplored Antarctic 



Science and Invention 213 

regions. In 1905 he left Havre in the Frangais, and after 
an absence of many months he brought home charts of the 
Palmer Archipelago, the Briscoe Islands, portions of Graham's 
Land, etc., besides many scientific notes on natural history, 
etc., made by the specialists who accompanied him. In August 
of the present year (1908), he left France again on another 
expedition towards the South Pole in the Pourquoi-Pas? 

Quite a new science, or scheme of observations, is associated 

with the name of M. Alphonse Bertillon (1853), who, after 

making ethnography his special study, elab- 

Anthropometry. ^^.^^g^j ^ system of human measurements 

having for its object an infallible means of identifying indi- 
viduals once arrested on any charge of sufficient seriousness 
to warrant their being subjected to a rather humiliating 
ordeal. The system was adopted by the French Government, 
and M. Bertillon was installed at the head of an anthropo- 
metric Bwr^i^iw at the Paris Prefecture of Police in 1880. The 
system is not strictly confined to measurements : it includes 
photographs, impressions taken in wax of the under surface 
of the thumb ; in fact, the whole art of accumulating evidence 
for purposes of speedy physical identification, which can defy 
the lapse of time. It has been brought to great perfection 
by M. Bertillon. 

Motoring, regarded as a sport, is dealt with under " Lights 

and Shadows." France may take credit for having towards 

the close of the nineteenth century given 

Automobilism. ^^^^ impetus to automobilism which has 
made it the form of locomotion a la mode that it now is. The 
inconvenience suffered from this cause by the majority for 
the pleasure of the minority is probably greater in France 
than it is in any other country. The highways, national and 
departmental, and in many places even the routes vicinales, 
or those that tie village to village, have lost nearly 
all their attraction to those who walk, drive, ride, or bicycle 
for their pleasure. The fine, well-kept roads have been taken 
possession of by the new comer, who stifles with dust his 



214 France of the French 

fellow-creatures, whom he treats generally with a very short 
measure of consideration. All regulations as to speed, 
except when towns are reached, and supervision becomes 
a possible reality, are set at nought. Thousands of people 
who live near certain highroads have during the summer 
months little chance of breathing air free from dust except 
at night. Such is the state of things that automobilism 
has brought about in France. It presents a difficult problem 
to the legislator on account of the interests at stake. 

Automobilism was not first thought of in France, but it 
was the French who seized the ball at the bound after the 
invention of the carburettor, which rendered it possible to 
produce as it was required a gas from essence of petroleum 
to take the place of coal-gas previously employed for the 
explosive engine. 

Among those who figure most prominently in laying the 
foundations of the great French industry of motor-car 
construction was M. Albert de Dion (now marquis), who was 
born in 1856. In 1883 he founded at Puteaux, near Paris, 
works originally designed for boiler making, but which in 
an incredibly short time became an immense factory for the 
construction of various types of automobiles. In 1895 
M. de Dion founded the Automobile Club of France, and with 
M. Pierre Giffard gave the movement now being considered 
its sporting and fashionable impetus, the consequences of 
which have been so vast. International motor-car races 
were organized with the primary object of advertising 
automobiles of French manufacture, and secondly to stimulate 
the interest of the rich and well-to-do in the new means of 
locomotion. The first of these races was Paris-Berlin (1901). 
A fresh impetus was given by the institution of the Gordon 
Bennett Cup. Of late years, the international motor-car 
race organized by the Automobile Club has taken place in 
France, on a " circuit " marked out months beforehand. In 
1907 and 1908 it was in the department of the Seine- 
Inferieure. On the first of these occasions the honours were 



Science and Invention 2l5 

taken by Italy and on the second by German}^ The study, 
energy, and capital given to the; motor-car industry in other 
countries have thus caused the French manufacturers to 
lose some of the ground that they had gained in a field where 
for a few years it appeared their supremacy was not to be 
seriously disputed. 

France has kept her lead in all that relates to the construc- 
tion of balloons from the year (1783), when the brothers 
Montgoliier made their first ascent with an 

Dirigible aerostat filled with heated air. The problem 
Balloons. ^ , ., ,. • ^ ■ ^ -, -, 

of buildmg an air-ship that would answer 

to its helm and not be at the merc}^ of the winds, had long 

stirred the spirit of invention before Lieutenant-Colonel 

Renard (1847-1905) made the first practical experiments 

in this direction at Meudon under the auspices of the French 

Government. In 1884 the Parisians were much surprised 

to see a cigar-shaped object in the air, and especially when, 

instead of continuing upon its course with the wind, it turned 

round and was steered towards the point from which it had 

apparently risen. It was believed that France was in 

possession of a dirigible balloon that might prove of great 

service in time of war. But the hope was disappointed, or 

was not realized until long afterwards. The Renard balloon 

was a failure, mainly because the propelling power was so 

weak that it could make no headway against a wind of any 

force. It was not until the beginning of the present century 

that public interest was again aroused in what was termed 

aerial navigation by the experiments in France of the 

Brazilian, M. Santos-Dumont (1873). He realized to what 

an extent the powerful, yet light, motors which had been 

constructed to meet the demands of automobilism aided the 

solution of the problem of producing a practical air-ship. 

In 1901, by doubling the Eiffel Tower and returning with 

his dirigible balloon to the spot near St. Cloud from which 

the ascent was made, he won the prize of £4,000 offered by 

M. Deutsch. From that date the progress made in this branch 



216 France of the French 

of aerostatics has been swift and remarkable. In various 
countries the dirigible balloon has come to be regarded as 
a military accessory that cannot be dispensed with. The 
French Government found a valuable auxiliary in M. Paul 
Lebaudy, who devoted large sums of money to the construc- 
tion of dirigible balloons upon the plans of the engineer, M. 
Julliot, and for the exclusive use of the military authorities. 
Motors of forty horse-power are employed for these balloons, 
which can now make long voyages and be steered in any 
direction in moderate weather. 

M. Santos-Dumont was the first in France to solve the 
problem of aviation, which in this sense is understood to mean 
the power of a person to raise himself in the 
via ion. ^.^ jjy mechanical action with a machine 
heavier than the atmosphere. In 1906 he won the Arch- 
deacon Cup by the convincing manner in which he accom- 
plished this end, so far as the principle involved was concerned. 
Nevertheless, it is well known that the American brothers, 
Messrs. Wright, had previously solved the problem, and that 
they were really the pioneers in practical aviation, the 
machines used in France being merely modifications of the 
one invented in the United States. After winning the 
Archdeacon Cup, M. Santos-Dumont virtually retired from 
the competition in France before M. Henry Farman and 
M. Delagrange, both of whom used aeroplanes constructed 
by the same French makers. Their success has been very 
remarkable, and there are signs that aviation will soon be 
added to the known forms of sport, if it is not destined to 
perform a more useful or menacing part in the coming time. 



CHAPTER XIII 

RURAL FRANCE 

More than two centuries have passed since La Bruyere 
drew his lamentable picture of the wretchedness and degrada- 
tion of the French peasantry : wild animals with human faces, 
digging with invincible obstinacy , living in dens, and subsisting 
on black bread and roots. Everybody is familiar with it, 
and it is commonly regarded as a fairly accurate description 
of the state of the French peasantry prior to the Revolution. 
Nevertheless, that it was an exaggerated picture, or one 
much more applicable to certain parts of the country than 
to others, may be taken as certain. The enormous changes, 
however, that have come to pass in the material condition 
of the peasantry since the Revolution, their rise from a 
state of dependence very like serfdom to one of substantiality 
and political power, are mighty facts. Is not the propitiation 
of the peasant one of the chief concerns of statesmen and 
successive Governments ? We have this apparent anomaly : 
although more conservative of old customs and traditions 
than any other class of the community, with minds in which 
still live the ferments of ideas transmitted by far away 
generations and belonging to what is often flippantly spoken 
of as the dead past, the peasantry are indebted to the Revo- 
lution for the measure of substantial comfort, security, and 
independence they possess to-day, more than all the other 
elements of which the French nation is composed. The 
peasants have reaped most of the social benefits that were 
sown in blood at the close of the eighteenth century, and 
nurtured in an atmosphere heated by class antagonism. 
It was the Revolution that made the peasant landowner. 
The justice of the operation is not to be considered here. 
It was a prodigious social experiment, and whether right 

217 



21 8 France of the French 

or wrong, just or unjust, it has succeeded. Peasant- 
proprietary is the sheet-anchor of the nation. A people, 
conservative by temperament and ingrained 

The Peasant ];^q}^[i^ b^t so torn by faction fighting as the 
French are, have a pecuhar need of a numerous 
peasantry attached to the soil by the all-potent tie of owner- 
ship, which creates and continually fosters that affection for 
the land which is the beginning of patriotism as well as its 
best safeguard. Unimaginative, with ambition limited to 
the horizon of his hamlet or village, the peasant who is able to 
call himself a " proprietor " arrives at the essential social 
truths without philosophy or learning, but by a sort of instinct 
which his interests awaken. 

It would be a great error, however, to suppose that there 
is anything approaching uniformity throughout the various 
provinces of France in the material condition of the peasantry 
and their relationship to the soil. The small landowner is, 
no doubt, to be found everywhere ; that is, the true peasant- 
proprietor who works his two, three, or several acres with 
his own hands, aided by wife and children, if he has a family ; 
but in some parts of the country the land is cut up into these 
small estates much more than it is in others. There is no 
law to limit the quantity of land that a man may own, or 
to compel him to drive the plough, scatter the seed, or prune 
the vine himself because he owns it. He can sell what acres 
he possesses to his neighbour, who thus becomes a landowner 
of more importance than he was before. Where the land is 
most valuable the tendency is for the number of owners 
to diminish rather than to increase. It is not rare for the 
capitalist to be evolved in course of time from the peasant 
stock, and we then get the " gentleman farmer," or the land- 
owner, who is so far above the peasant that he either leases 
his land to the practical farmer, as is the rule in England, or 
prefers the metayage system, which is the division of results, 
regulated by certain conditions and customs determined by 
local usage. 



Rural France 219 

There are no indications that France is getting nearer the 

realization of the Revolutionary ideal of a fair division of 

the land among those who cultivate it ; the 

The Division signs rather point the other way, notwith- 

of the Land, standing the law relating to succession, which 
in theory secures the equal treatment of 
children after the death of parents, and the consequent 
division or morcellement of the land. Everybody knows that 
there are ways of getting round the law — an art that is 
nowhere understood better than in France. 

It must not be supposed that the peasant-proprietor is a 
man without grievances, that he lives in a little Arcadia 
because he has no rent to pay for his land, 
and owns enough to give himself and all his 
family plenty of occupation. He may be prosperous, or so 
poor that an English agricultural labourer would not care to 
exchange lots with him. He, like men who have no estate, 
is largely at the mercy of circumstances. His soil may be 
generous and bountiful, or it may be niggardly and ungrateful. 
It may be near towns where the produce can be easily and 
profitably disposed of, or it may be so inconveniently situated 
that the owner is obliged to sell at prices which make him 
no less a slave of societj^ than the town workman who main- 
tains that he is one because his earnings barely suffice to 
procure him necessaries. Indeed, if this condition of working 
hard for a bare subsistence is slavery, then the peasant 
landowners of France may count among their number a very 
large proportion of slaves. To work from the first ray of 
sunrise until far into the afterglow of sunset all through 
months where there is outdoor work to be done, eating little 
besides bread and vegetables made into soup, and drinking 
only water, except on festive occasions, widely spaced out, 
would not be considered by the Paris artisan an existence 
fit for a human being. Nevertheless, there are many 
thousands of French peasants owning the land that they till 
who live like this ; not from parsimony, but because they 



220 France of the French 

know exactly what nature insists upon having in return for 
what she gives. And the gift is not always to be relied upon. 

But if the peasant's bread is at times bitter, it is sweetened 

by independence and hope. His struggle is hard, but it is 

healthy, and he is less exposed than other 

^"^ T^H^^"^^ men of the same social level to degrading 
vices. The plainness of his food and the 
actual deficiency of his nutriment in certain districts do not 
appear to shorten his life. In a word, his lot has its manifest 
advantages and compensations, even when in a material 
sense he is among the least favoured of his class. 

Locality affects enormously the question of his well-being. 
The peasant landowner in rich and bountiful Normandy, 
within easy reach of Paris on the one hand, 
Contrasts. ^^^ seaports on the other, by which all 
superfluity of many kinds of produce can be shipped to the 
facile markets of the United Kingdom undefended by those 
fiscal palissades, customs, and octroi tariffs, is wealthy com- 
pared to the peasant of Brittany moors or the rugged highlands 
and stone-strewn plateaux of Central and Southern France, 
although the extent of his land may be much less than that 
of the men with whose lot his own is being now contrasted. 
In Normandy the farmer who does not own the land is very 
frequently found, for the reason that the soil there is capable 
of being a paying investment to the capitalist. Moreover, 
when the peasant moves up in the social scale by the ac- 
quisition of capital, there is a tendency in his case, or rather 
in those who come after him, to relinquish rural life and 
the primitive occupation of husbandry. Social ambition 
frequently quarrels with the sources of its own satisfaction ; 
a phenomenon not only observable in France. 

There is much reason for looking upon the peasant land- 
owners of the prosperous agricultural dis- 
Spoilt by tricts, such as the rich corn-growing plain of 
the Beauce, and certain parts of Normandy, 
as a spoilt peasantry — spoilt by success. Too often are 



Rural France 221 

they found to be high feeders, copious drinkers, keenly, if 
not sordidly, acquisitive, unimaginative and coarse in their 
ideas and tastes. Material prosperity, when its effects are 
not corrected by mental, and especially by moral, culture, 
has an almost fatal tendency to develop habits that are 
degrading and qualities that repel. The man who enjoys 
too easily, and is without ideals, is a factor of degeneracy 
and a potential destroyer of his own family. It is to be 
noted as a social symptom that among the class of prosperous 
agriculturists in France the birth-rate is exceptionally low. 

Nothing, however, would be more misleading than to suggest 
that the peasant landowner in France is, as a rule, what is 
understood by the term a prosperous man. It is probable 
that no man works harder than he for a living, and a very 
bare one too. Prosperous ease only falls to the lot of a 
few who live by the land, and there are extensive districts 
where it is almost unknown ; such, foi instance, as those 
tracts of the Correze, the Ardeche, and the Lozere, where 
land and climate combine to produce very little besides 
chestnuts, buckwheat, and potatoes. To the peasants 
here, chestnuts and potatoes are their principal food, and 
their drink water — sometimes flavoured with juniper berries. 
By far the greater number of the peasant landowners only 
employ the simplest implements of husbandry. Few people 

in most of the French provinces have ever 
iSsS-nd? ^^^^ ^ steam plough or a mowing machine, 

although in some favoured districts agriculture 
has become much more scientific of late years, and the use 
of machines designed to save labour has much increased. 
Nevertheless, the rule is otherwise, and must continue to 
be so, because the land being divided up into such a multitude 
of petty estates, the problem which the peasant-proprietor 
has to solve is quite different from that of the capitalist who 
has hundreds of acres to deal with. Whether this state of 
things promotes the general well-being or not is an economic 
question of the highest interest, but beyond the scope of 



222 France of the French 

the present work. If the continued use of the scythe, the 
sickle, the flail, and the bullock- drawn plough (on the stony 
causses of the southern uplands the wooden share of the 
Romans is still employed), stirs the contemptuous pity of 
the up-to-date agriculturist, those who look upon rural life 
with an eye to the picturesque, and who feel the strong 
idyllic charm of the ancient methods of drawing from the 
earth the bounty whereby all men live, find in the primitive 
rusticity of France sources of inexhaustible pleasure and 
interest. This rusticity has been preserved by the peasant- 
proprietor. The flail, however, is disappearing except in 
the poorest and least populous districts. Its rhythmic beating 
has elsewhere almost ceased to be counted with the rural 
sounds. In its stead we have the hum of the threshing 
machine, which travels about the country on the hiring 
system. In some parts, particularly in Normandy, the 
horse is much used to drive a threshing machine instead of 
steam power, and a very droll figure the animal makes on 
the treadmill. Apples are crushed for cider in the same way. 
The metayage system of farming land calls for more than 
a passing mention, because it is still practised on a large scale 
^^ in France. Like a great deal more in the 
e ayage. customs of the country, it depends much on 
locality. In the south-western departments, except where 
wine -growing is the agricultural industry, it is the method 
generally adopted by landowners who do not belong to the 
peasant class. Many such live in a country house almost 
invariably spoken of as a " chateau " — and which is often 
enough a patched-up feudal castle, or castellated manoir, to 
which, perhaps, two or three small farms are attached, and 
in each a metayer is installed. These farms are then termed 
metairies. The tenant pays no rent, but is almost as much 
master in his own house and on the land he works as if he 
had paid for their occupation. Both he and the landlord 
depend upon results, and both have, therefore, a direct 
interest in co-operating for the mutual good. The conditions 



Rural France 223 

differ somewhat according to locality, but what is usual is 
for the landlord to provide the implements of husbandry, 
seed for sowing, and animals needed for labour. Sometimes 
there is joint ownership in respect of these animals ; oxen, 
for instance, which are needed for ploughing. With regard 
to live stock reared on the metairie, no general rule is followed 
respecting the division. When the tenant takes less than 
half of the crops, he is usually termed a colon. When the 
landlord is casting about for a suitable metayer or colon, he 
seeks for a married man with healthy, useful children. The 
farm is, as a rule, so small that such a family is able to do all 
the work upon it, except at times of extraordinary pressure, 
when the extra expense follows the arrangement as to results. 

It is easy to understand that such a complicated system 
as this, and one whose success depends so much upon fair 
dealing necessitates the near presence of the landlord or 
his steward. In spite of objections, which in theory seem 
rather formidable, it must have worked out on the whole 
satisfactorily, for it to have resisted so long the practical 
test, and to show at the present day no sign of dying out. 
It should be noted, however, that it prevails chiefly in districts 
where the agricultural methods have changed but little in 
the course of centuries, — as, for example, in Perigord, the 
Limousin, and the Quercy. 

Most of the landowners who have recourse to it, have 

neither the capital, nor the enterprise to work their land 

themselves in accordance with modern notions 

^PeasanS^" ^^ agricultural efficiency. Many are gentil- 

hommes campagnards — which does not mean 

quite the same thing as country gentlemen. They may be 

gentlemen who rank, as their ancestors did for centuries, with 

the small nobility, but who, by the Revolution or other 

vicissitudes of fortune, have long lived in daily contact with 

the peasantry, and have thus adopted a great deal of their 

simple tastes and habits and frontier-lines of thought, even 

to speaking their patois, sometimes with more ease and 



224 France of the French 

facility than academic French. One may weU question 
whether they and those who depend upon them, and who are 
in some sort vassals wearing the varnish of political liberty, 
would be better off if the slow, and may be stupid, routine 
of the past were swept away and the land which, like those 
who live on it, has so far fulfilled its destiny on easy terms 
with human intelligence, were brought under high cultivation. 
This could only be effected by the influx of capital into rural 
districts and the application of centralizing methods whose cer- 
tain result would be to drive the peasant still more towards the 
towns when the land on which he works does not belong to him. 
The gentilhomme campagnard is one of the most interesting 
of French characters, and one whose disappearance would be 
an irremediable loss to the student of manners and life. 
Having at least as much book learning as the ordinary middle- 
class Frenchman, there is often something superior in his 
education which may perhaps be best described as the spirit 
of his class, transmitted by successive generations. His 
rusticity is therefore free from vulgarity, and is generally 
united to a frank and easy cordiality. His lack of enterprise 
and poor adaptability to the commercial ideas and scientific 
methods of an age in which he appears like a bewildered 
man standing aside on what used to be the quiet country 
road, while the stream of new motor traffic rushes past, is 
balanced by frugality and simplicity of life. He is frequently 
a remnant of the old territorial nobility. It may well be 
asked if there is not more nobleness and dignity in the lives 
of such poor and rustic gentlemen than in an aristocracy 
that seems to be fast abandoning all gods but the golden 
calf, and is vastly more solicitous to re-gild its scutcheons 
than to maintain the race. 
The wine growers are a distinct class of agriculturists, 

and a very important one in France. In 
Wine Growers, speaking of them we must set aside at once 

those wealthy people to whom a vineyard 
of note is a hobby and a distraction as a yacht might be. 



Rural France 225 

To own a wine of high repute, and to have the power of with- 
holding it from other men, has long been one of the familiar 
forms of human ambition. It is one that appealed much 
to kings, as well as to ecclesiastical dignitaries in old time. 
In these days it is the invariable rule in France of those who 
own the vineyards of celebrated wine-chateaux, but who 
seldom see them, to draw what revenue they can from the 
investment — which in the case of not a few is another way 
of saying, lose as little as possible by it. Nevertheless, these 
proprietors of " grands crus," cannot properly be termed 
wine growers. At all events, they do not belong to the class 
of cultivators to be dealt with here as representing one of 
the industrial forces of the nation. 

The wine grower may be taken to be a man who lives on 
his vineyard or near to it, who knows everything concerning 
its treatment, and also understands the art of wine making. 
Such a man may be a very small peasant-proprietor, or 
one in every way equipped for moving in general society, 
and even occupying a position of influence and authority. 
Throughout the very extensive Bordeaux wine district, 
which may be taken as an illustration, whether it be in the 
M6doc, the St. Emilionais, the Sauternais, or the Blayais, 
such proprietors are found with their extensive vineyards 
touching those of the peasant-growers who plough and prune, 
prepare the vats, and fill the hogsheads with their own hands. 
Everywhere the majority of growers are men of small means 
and humble views. 

Prior to the war of 1870, no class of agriculturists in France 
was so comfortably off as the wine growers. Since then 

they have been fighting their own long war 

Troubles of the with a succession of hostile forces : the 

Wine Grower, phylloxera, mildew, oidium, etc. Science 

and tenacity may now be said to have over- 
come these enemies, or to have worsted them to such an 
extent that they no longer spread utter desolation over 
the vine-covered hills and plains. But a new adversary 
15— (239S) 



226 France of the French 

has arisen ; one that was quite left out of calculation when 
after all the ruin wrought by the phylloxera in those far- 
southern departments extending across the Mediterranean 
Basin from the Alps to the spurs of the Pyrenees — a vast 
region known as the Midi — the discovery was made that 
varieties of the American vine resisted the pest, and the 
stocks were planted with all possible haste in order that 
those who were the first to suffer from the destroying scourge 
might be the first to profit by the dearth of wine. The new 
adversary is over-production. Much more land was 
planted with vines in the Midi than was put to the same use 
before, and the new vines produced more abundantly than 
the old French vines. But the new wine was far from having 
the same commercial value as that which the Midi had yielded 
in other days. The anticipations of the wine growers of 
the south were not fulfilled, or were so for only a brief period. 
The vineyards of the Gironde (Bordeaux district), of Burgundy, 
and Champagne were not devastated by the phylloxera to 
anything like the same degree as were those of the Midi, 
chiefly because in these parts of France the growers were 
given time to profit by the experience of others. Moreover, 
the extension of wine cultivation in Algeria caused a large 
quantity of cheap wine to flow thence into France, in com- 
petition with the chief product of the Midi, and this helped to 
bring about a crisis of abundance. 

These explanations are needed to throw light on the true 
cause of the " wine-growers' revolt " in 1907, which led to 

street riots and loss of life at Narbonne, 

The Wine- and a state of administrative anarchy in 

Growers' Revolt, several of the Mediterranean departments 

causing grave uneasiness, but was met and 
at length overcome by the tactful measures of the Clemenceau 
Government. The popular outcry of those who suffered 
from the mevente — the inability to find a market for the 
accumulated stock of wine on the growers' premises — was 
fraud ; but although fraudulent practices were no doubt 



Rural France 227 

responsible in some degree for the distress of the population," 
production beyond the commercial and remunerative demand 
for such light wine as is now yielded by the Mediterranean 
departments was alone a sufficient explanation. 

The wine grower, who has contributed, and still contributes, 
so largely to the national wealth, because he exports the 

most valuable kind of natural produce 
Protection. yielded by France, has some ground for 
believing that he is not assisted and protected by legislation 
as are others who live by the soil. Protection, however 
stringent, in regard to the importation of foreign grown 
wines, could not possibly affect the interests of the French 
wine grower in anything like the same degree as the existing 
Customs Tariff favours the grower of corn and beet, and the 
raiser of live stock. But however protected by tariffs, the 
whole agricultural class complain bitterly of taxation. It 
appears certain that if the protection of the agriculturist 
were done away with, and France were to open her ports 
freely to foreign produce, the legislature would have to make 
a sweeping reform in the system of land taxation, or accept 
the grave political consequences of impoverishing and 
exasperating the rural population. The dilemma is not likely 
to be faced. 

In France the agricultural labourer plays a less conspicuous 
part in rural life than he does in England. The explanation 

is not hard to find : it is mainly in the system 

T^^ of peasant-proprietary, which goes so far to 

Labourer. remove the need of hired labour in the fields. 

The extent to which metayage is practised 
is a further explanation, for the metayer cannot be properly 
termed a labourer. He has entered into a sort of temporary 
partnership with the landowner. The rural labourer is a 
man who might perhaps find matter for a justifiable quarrel 
with society, if he were one to rebel against his lot ; but, as a 
rule, he is not so. He is too lethargically patient and too 
ignorant of the life of the energetic, active world from which 



228 France of the French 

he is cut off, to be equipped for the fray ; or may be he has, 
despite his ignorance, a philosophic insight of the truth that 
he might benefit his condition materially and yet be more 
unhappy in mind, and much less healthy in body by a change. 
He is generally a man who takes things easily, asks for little, 
and lives long. He is perhaps not so hardworked as are some 
other labourers, but his food does not deviate much from 
the minimum that keeps body|^and soul together, and the 
amelioration of his lot by his own exertions is well-nigh 
hopeless. He, at all events, has not been much benefited 
by the Revolution : he might as well have lived before it, 
when the times were not too bad. The lord of the soil for 
whom he would then have toiled might have taken more 
care of him than his peasant taskmaster of to-day, but he 
would not have had the liberty which is his to-day, nor the 
same educational advantages. When the love of still greater 
hberty grows strong in him, and when the knowledge that 
possibilities lie before him of earning more money and drawing 
more enjoyment from life breaks upon his intelligence, he 
quits the fields, the woods, and the mountains, if he is still 
young, and takes the road to the town, where, if his muscles 
are good and his zeal for work strong, he becomes another 
sort of labourer, living fairly well — meat and wine every 
day, and perhaps coffee and eau-de-vie — when jobs are to be 
had, and as long as they last, but half starving or begging 
when they fail. Who has the courage to say when a man 
is better or worse off ? No sphinx ever had such a secret 
to keep as this. 

If there is any branch of agriculture in which the French 
excel after wine growing — wherein they are pre-eminent — it is 

in market gardening — la petite culture, as it is 

Market often termed. Nowhere is the industry of 

(Petite Culture), those who have adopted this occupation so 

successful as in the neighbourhood of Paris ; 
nowhere probably — unless it be in China — do we see the 
problem of drawing the maximum yield and profit from the 



Rural France 229 

square yard of land so wonderfully worked out. Here we 
find families, not only living upon a piece of ground no bigger 
than many a kitchen garden attached to a country house, 
but living well and saving money. Moreover, these small 
cultivators of vegetables and fruit can afford to pay for hired 
labour better than many a peasant who owns far more land, 
but grows field crops. Of course, success depends mainly 
upon the situation ; it is the facilities for selling that so 
stimulate the industry and intelligence of the market gardeners 
round Paris. There is nothing more profitable and more 
reliable than the cultivation of winter and early spring salad, 
such as lettuce and all the varieties of chicory. In this work 
the simple invention of the movable bell-glass or cloche, has 
been of the greatest service to mankind. Every ray of 
sunshine is, by its means, utilized at a season when solar 
heat is so precious to all forced vegetation. Although the 
winter salads and early vegetables are grown under glass, 
the work is done on such a scale and so methodically that the 
produce is brought within easy reach of most people. 
Luxuries of former days have come to be regarded by 
thousands as necessaries. The Paris market gardener needs 
to start with some capital, for the hundreds of bell-glasses 
that he requires represent a considerable outlay. 

Although a return to the Protectionist policy, which was 

almost abandoned by the Empire, undoubtedly helped to 

mitigate the agricultural crisis which was so 

Agricultural severe in France during a rather long series 

and Banks, of years under the present Republic, other 

forces have been at work to help those who 

live by the land, notably the formation on an extensive scale 

since 1884 of agricultural syndicates for mutual support and 

assistance, and of Societes de Credit Agricole, which are 

simply banks for the advance of funds to agriculturists 

crippled by the want of capital, but whose situation offers 

certain guarantees. The syndicates have done much to 

spread the use of chemical manures and of agricultural 



230 France of the French 

machinery ; in fact, to familiarize the peasant landowner 
with the latest methods of treating the soil and teach him 
the science of the subject. Although little impression could 
be made upon the fixed opinions and habits of the elder 
generation, the younger men, especially in the more wide- 
awake districts, have moved somewhat with the times. Much 
progress in ideas may also be attributed to the establishment 
of agricultural schools and colleges under the Third Republic. 
To grow tobacco is a privilege in France, because every leaf 
that is grown is assumed to be Government property before it 

is cut. The state buys every man's crop at 
Growine ^^^ ^^^ price, when it has been harvested 

and properly dried in sheds built for the 
purpose, and wherever it is grown there are officials who give 
out the seed, count the number of plants, see that these are 
destroyed when they have sprouted afresh after the cutting, 
and in all other respects protect the Excise from fraud. 
Like other State privileges, that of tobacco growing is only 
granted to those who are above suspicion in a political sense. 
This branch of agriculture is carried on in a few of the depart- 
ments where climatic conditions are favourable. It is in 
the south-west that the plant is chiefly cultivated, and especi- 
ally in the warm valleys of the Garonne and Dordogne, 
and their tributaries, where there is rich alluvial soil, and 
sufficient moisture. The quality varies greatly in different 
localities, and is paid for accordingly, the finer leaf being used 
for cigars, and the rest for smoking-tobacco and snuff. Half 
a franc a pound for the dried leaf is considered the full price. 
The best is bad in the opinion of those whose taste for tobacco 
has not been acquired in the French school, but the French 
themselves have by habit learned to be well pleased with 
one or other of the qualities prepared in the State manu- 
factories, and their grievances in respect of their home-grown 
tobacco are the high price at which it is sold by the Regie, 
and the too liberal allowance of sticks and chumps that is 
often found in a packet. 



CHAPTER XIV 

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 

The French have the reputation out of France — and they 

themselves are half inclined to believe that it must be true — 

of being the most frivolous and pleasure- 

^ ^eo"le*^"^ loving people in the world. In reality, they 
are among the most industrious, the most 
prudent, and the most calculating. They even calculate their 
pleasures, or rather their means of indulging them, to a 
nicety. The majority taste rarely of that pleasure which 
finds its motive and expression in the public places, but when 
an opportunity of the kind comes to them, they generally 
make the most of it. No people enjoy themselves more 
thoroughly while they are about it. They bring a certain 
philosophy to bear upon their pleasure, which is a gift of 
character. This is why so many who do not understand 
them come to wrong conclusions. 

French people of the working and lower middle-class are 
apt to make a great deal of noise, and to yield freely to the 
impulse of movement when they are happy, because when 
this feeling is strong upon them they like to show it. There are 
others who prefer to keep their happiness to themselves, or 
strictly for family use ; a question of temperament and bringing 
up. One sees more of this reserve now in France than 
formerly, but it is not characteristic of the people. Perhaps 
sunshine has much to do with the development of joyous 
and expansive natures ; at any rate, the inhabitants of the 
southern half of France wear their happiness outside, when 
they have any to wear, more than do those of the northern 
half. 

France is a land of strong contrasts. This is singularly 

231 



232 France of the French 

so in the physical order ; it is not less so in the moral and 
social order. There are wonderful facilities for choosing a 
climate in France. Along the northern 
seaboard the conditions are hyperborean 
enough to please the most infatuated lover of the " brave 
North-Easter," while on the Mediterranean litoral the 
climate is in sheltered places sub-tropical. As regards 
the French people, one may say the differences of light 
and shade in their character, as well as in habits and 
views of life, are continually producing the most violent 
contrasts. 

The statement that the French are among the most patient 
people on earth may be a little startling to those who have 
formed general impressions from the most 
a lence. dramatic pages of their history. We all 
know that they have had fits of impatience, and very bad 
ones, too. The severest paroxysm of the sort is described 
in their annals as the Terror. Other things have happened 
since which have also tended to spread the notion abroad 
that they are anything but a patient people. It is a wrong 
impression. Their political convulsions may in a large 
measure be traced to the fact that they are too patient. 
They give themselves too little trouble to remove abuses of 
all sorts, to free themselves from the grinding annoyance 
of stupid formalities, to correct the insolence of Jacks-in- 
office, to bring their own force — that of public opinion — to 
bear upon work of legislation for the practical and general 
well-being. They allow much to be done by legislators of 
which they do not see the need, and which neither their 
conscience nor their reason approves ; but when politics are 
not their business, and their own material interests are not 
so disagreeably affected as to compel them to move, they 
are apathetic and little prone to bestir themselves and 
agitate, after the manner of English people, for the sake of 
principles. Here is a small illustration of a state of mind that 
is applicable to matters of weightier import : A Frenchman 



Lights and Shadows 233 

buys a box of matches of his Government for a penny, 
and finds again and again that at least ten per cent, of these 
are worthless. This means that he and others pay ten per 
cent, more than the price at which the Government pretends 
to sell its wares. The private trader who uses false weights 
or measures is prosecuted by the Government ; but as the 
Government cannot prosecute itself for doing what in principle 
is the same thing, the abuse has come to be accepted as 
irremediable. What wonder if most people buy contraband 
matches whenever they get a chance ? These are not only 
cheap but reliable. To cheat the Regie, by which term is 
understood that part of the administration which relates 
to inland revenue from indirect taxation, is regarded as almost 
virtuous, which is a sad state of things, but perhaps the R^gie 
is largely responsible for it. It has not won a good name 
for fair dealing, and it is in the position of the tradesman 
who has no fear of competition. If the French were not 
patient to a fault, they would either get rid of their State 
monopolies, or, as these are a profitable source of public 
revenue, have the system improved beyond all recognition. 
They prefer to think improvement impossible, and to accept 
their fate. 

What follows is written from experience of the southern 
half of France. In the dusk the figure of a man, or woman, 

creeps along as near to the wall, or garden 

Contraband hedge as possible, and soon contrives to make 

Traffic. signs, that are understood, at the kitchen 

window. The mysterious comer, on receiving 
another sign, takes out of a sack bundles of matches, which 
are really little blocks of fir or pine wood that have been split 
into many bristling parts down to the base. The tops of the 
split wood have been dipped first in sulphur and afterwards 
in red phosphorus. These matches always do their duty, 
and, by comparison v/ith the Government's matches, they 
seem to be given for nothing. Places could be mentioned 
where everybody uses them, including the officials, from 



234 France of the French 

the mayor downward. When matters are thus understood 
en familley those engaged in the traffic do not run much risk ; 
but now and again the gendarmes catch a contrebandier, 
and he or she gets a few weeks' imprisonment, during which 
time some other member of the family carries on the business. 

A good-tempered people, loving a quiet, easy-going life, 

happy over their work, if it is not too trying, and especially 

if it affords a margin of money to be saved, 

Indifference qj- spent on amusement, the French are too 

fl tl n 1 f'Q 

Dangers. ready to let themselves be governed, and to 
treat with indifference the work of their 
legislators until causes of dissatisfaction accumulate. Then 
violent explosions are apt to occur, of which the shock may 
be terrific. The patient, long-suffering, and amiable people 
can, under the influences of political excitement, become 
cruel and sanguinary to a degree that reaches frenzy. While 
the paroxysm lasts their normal character can hardly be 
recognized. The volcano, whose eruptions have been so 
disturbing in the past, is not extinct, although it has long 
ceased to be threatening. The increasing tension between 
capital and labour indicates where the weak point in the 
crater now is. 

There is a good deal of puzzling psychology in French 

views of liberty and justice, or rather in the manner in which 

the concrete meets the abstract on these 

Liberty and alluring heights of thought, which to the 

Justice. cynic must often appear to be the chief 

playground of human ideas. In spite of 

revolutionists and philosophers who, together with political 

and social upheavals have made the French populace very 

prone to imagine that liberty is something that they invented, 

it is ever matter of amazement to note by the light of passing 

events how little progress ideal freedom has made in France 

even during the last hundred years. There is the same fear 

of liberty under the Republic that existed under previous 

regimes ; differing in degree, no doubt, and modes of 



Lights and Shadows 235 

expression, but essentially identical. Sufficient proof of this 
to be found in the extraordinary precautions that are still 
taken to prevent a defeated political party from regaining 
power and influence — precautions which are carried through 
all the administrative ramifications. Not only prefects 
and sub-prefects, but the multitude of lesser officials, such as 
communal schoolmasters, tax-gatherers, even postmasters, 
are expected to reflect the ruling tint and tone of political 
opinion. There are always those who watch them and 
report upon them, and if they are suspected of having 
" reactionary '* sympathies, the road to their promotion is 
barred, or seriously incumbered, with frivolous obstacles. 
For years past it has been enough for an official to be noticed 
frequently at church, unless there are special reasons to plead 
as excuses, such as marriages and funerals, for him to be 
suspected. The fear that his name may for this reason be 
struck off the list of those to be helped on, makes him avoid 
any act that malevolence may report as a sign of " clericalism." 
Prudence for the sake of the family leads many such officials 
to allow themselves to be classed with Freethinkers, although 
they are not so. The wives and children of these generally 
go to church, but discreetly and furtively. In official circles 
religious services are just tolerated as a pastime for women 
and children. A large number of anti-clerical legislators 
are obliged to show such toleration in their own family, 
because they have to reckon with their wives, and women 
generally in France respect religious traditions ; moreover, 
they often bring the money. The magistracy and the army 
(the cadres) are by no means free from official pressure in the 
domain of conscience. Judges and officers who have attained 
a high position, and cannot be removed on a frivolous pretext 
without scandal, can enjoy an ample measure of liberty, but 
all the younger men who aspire have to sail with the wind, or 
pretend to do so. Failing this, they may be made to realize 
that they have taken a wrong course in life. If they get 
passed over in the order of promotion, they soon become 



236 France of the French 

classed as fruits sees. There is little left for them then to do 
but to get drier. The misfortune is that the system rests 
upon ingrained political habit and administrative traditions 
with fibres and roots that defy all operations. If a legislature 
of " Reactionaries " were to succeed the present one, the 
same system would be continued, with this difference, that 
those who persecute to-day, and their irresponsible agents, 
would themselves be persecuted to-morrow. The best hope 
for liberty and justice is in the development of a spirit of 
moderation that will be stronger than the views of political 
rancour and prejudice. 

It is in the provinces that one realizes how France is 
divided up into hostile camps and coteries, and what is very 

peculiar is that this hostility, which is 

Camps and fundamentally political, exists and makes 

Coteries. hon menage with large indifference in regard 

to questions that are supposed to agitate 
public opinion, while doing little more than make ripples on 
its surface. People living in country towns may be abhorrent 
to one another on political grounds, although they may never 
read a parliamentary debate. Where questions of national 
importance often fail to awaken any real interest, those of 
local politics, although they are always marked out on the 
main lines of party division which run through the nation, 
usually excite a spirit of bitter partizanship, because they 
are associated with individuals who are known and can be 
seen. A little burg may work itself into a state of white 
heat over the election of municipal councillors, and show very 
moderate zeal over the election of a deputy for the circum- 
scription. Those whose political sympathies separate them 
from one another contrive to have as few dealings in common 
as possible. Cafes take a political colour from those who 
frequent them, an arrangement that prevents many quarrels. 
A lady with monarchical or conservative traditions in her 
family, which there are reasons for upholding, would rather 
do without boots or gloves than buy such things of a local 



Lights and Shadows 237 

tradesman with the reputation of an advanced Republican. 
In the larger towns and cities, the meaner aspects of political 
rancour and partizanship are much less perceptible ; but there, 
as elsewhere, the whole administrative network of society is 
controlled by ministers and their subordinates with a view 
to the extinction of dangerous influences. After the scandal 
in connection with " delation in the army," when General 
Andre was Minister of War, it is impossible to affirm that the 
system of separating from the sheep those who are suspected 
of being goats is confined to the services under the Minister 
of the Interior. 

Politics are a blight on French life and character, because 
of their tendency to descend to mere intrigue, faction-fighting, 

and Byzantinism. They are not only a 
Qualities lasting obstacle to national unity, but, as 

already indicated, go far to prevent social 
intercourse among French people, except within those pens 
which they make to rail themselves off, or into which they 
allow themselves to be driven. And yet there are no people 
whose social qualities are more supple,Vadaptable to circum- 
stances, more fit to lend a personal grace and charm to the 
amenities of life. Thus it is that the foreigner in their midst 
is apt to find those who hate one another equally pleasant, 
and to marvel that such an agreeable people should so often 
be afflicted with the mania of persecution in regard to their 
fellow-countrymen (and women), or act as if in some occult 
way they had received certain information of other people 
being pestiferous. Kindness, good fellowship, and hospitality 
are to be found everywhere in France, and these are qualities 
that flourish in perfect independence of all the separating 
influences of politics, class, and religion, or the negation of it. 
They belong to the nature of the people. But it is very 
much a part of their character also to be incapable of seeing 
any good at all in the political adversary, the Catholic, the 
Protestant, the Freethinker, as the case may be. The 
Catholic perceives nothing but iniquity in the Freemason, 



238 France of the French 

and the latter nothing but superstition and the malignity 
of bigoted ignorance in the Catholic. 

A word of explanation may here be needed with 
regard to Freemasonry in France. It is not, as in England, 

a non-political friendly organization, with 
Freemasonrv Conservative tendencies because of the 

social class from which it is mainly recruited ; 
it is a militant, political organization, with anti-religious 
objects that admit of no contradiction. The ideal of French 
Freemasonry is a State absolutely secularized, one in which 
only the forces and virtues inherent to human nature have 
any recognized authority and merit. This ideal has been 
officially brought as close to the point of realization as the 
sentimental respect for traditions, which is not dead in the 
nation, will at present permit. Many of the legislators who 
have figured prominently in the long battle with " Clericalism" 
were or are Freemasons. It was through the indiscretion, 
or infidelity, of an official of the Grand Orient Lodge in Paris, 
that the public became aware of the elaborate system of 
secret inquiry concerning the political opinions and religious 
practices of officers in the army, which had been organized 
at the head-quarters of the French Freemasons for the 
information and guidance of the Minister of War. The 
strong movement of reprobation which these revelations 
occasioned somewhat damaged the prestige of the Society. 

It is well known to French legislators that the number of 
officials of all categories has gone on increasing, and is now 

much larger than it need be. But although 
G S^ m" r w^^^i^S ^^t continues for political reasons, 

there is no cutting down of the staff. Much 
of a deputy's or senator's time is taken up in struggling or 
fencing amiably with political friends who want to get a son 
or nephew started on some career as a Government function- 
ary. The meagreness of the salary, which is the rule, does 
not deter applicants. Any bit of shelter under Government 
is inordinately prized on account of its security and the 



Lights and Shadows 239 

pension at the end of the long service. Many a man of 
abihty and initiative, capable of much under favourable 
circumstances, has bitterly regretted his parents' excessive 
desire to see him started in the safe groove of some official 
career, where he is condemned to spend his best years 
desperately strugghng to make both ends meet, and waiting 
for the promotion that may not come. 

In France people are not worried by the tax-gatherer at 
the door. He is quite an important personage called a 
Percepteur, sitting in an office — usually very 
Taxation. ^^^^ ^^^ dingy — with or without the round 
of leather on his chair which has caused him and kindred 
ofiicials to be described generally, and rather disrespectfully, 
as " ronds de cuir." He does not go about gleaning taxes, 
not even vicariously ; he makes them come to him. The 
ordinary tax on the house, or apartment-holder, called the 
taxe mohiliere, is one with which the public is most furiously 
familiar. It is regulated on the basis of rental. The collector 
gets the money in by a system of sending notices through 
the post on different coloured papers, each colour indicating 
the degree of intensity with which the payment is expected. 
There are three papers : the first is polite, the second is 
impatient, and the third is threatening. Many people wait 
until they get the aggressive colour before paying, but those 
who cultivate a life free from embroilments, which is just 
what most of the French do sincerely and devoutly, endeavour 
to avoid disagreeables with the diabolic Fisc. It must not 
be supposed that this is the only direct tax levied in France. 
Far from it. There is the land tax ; there is another on 
doors and windows (usually paid by the landlord) ; others on 
carriages, carts, bicycles, dogs, and so on. Each commune 
levies a tax for keeping up the roads, to which the name 
prestation is given, meaning thereby that those who do not 
wish to pay can put in three days' work on the roads instead, 
breaking stones or cleaning the ditches, as the case may be. 
It is a curious thing that those to whom this work in the 



240 France of the French 

open air would be more beneficial than any course of medicine, 
or any cure at Vichy or Cauterets, are precisely the people 
who prefer to pay the money. All taxes connected with the 
registration of deeds have to be paid at an office called the 
Bureau de I'Enregistrement. Direct taxation will be consider- 
ably modified if the principle of income tax, to which the 
present legislature is committed, be incorporated in the laws. 
The taxation that weighs most heavily on the French nation 
is indirect ; it affects not only luxuries, but nearly all the 
necessaries of life. This is aggravated by octroi dues, levied 
by towns upon all produce and merchandise entering them. 
Customs and excise duties are incorporated with the heavy 
burden of indirect taxation. 

The cost of every kind of food affected by customs tariffs 
and Protection is greater in France than it is in England, 

and if the strain is borne by the working 

Effect of Q^j^^ struggling middle class with so little 

Cost of Livincr. outside evidence of hardship within doors, 

it is because of the transmitted French habit 
of economy, and especially the talent of the housewife in 
making a little go a long way, together with her innate horror 
of needless expenditure. If meat, poultry, eggs, and butter 
are cheaper in out-of-the-way rural districts than they are 
in English villages, there is no advantage to be gained in the 
price of such food in the larger centres of population by 
comparison with the cost of living in English towns. The 
price of bread generally in France is higher than it is in 
England, but the difference is not suf&ciently marked to be 
dwelt upon. Where the contrast is shown in a really violent 
manner is in connection with all groceries. The reduction 
of the tax on sugar (nearly the whole of that consumed in 
France is made from home-grown beet) has brought the 
retail price down to about 3jd. the pound, to the great relief 
of the public, but the cost of coffee — a beverage so generally 
used by the people — is, when roasted, from is. yd. to 3s. the 
pound. The sale of tea is increasing rapidly in France, but 



Lights and Shadows 241 

the cheapest obtainable costs over 3s. the pound. This, 
however, only affects the classes whose situation in life is 
considered fortunate. Very different is the case with regard 
to the many indispensable articles that have to be bought 
of the grocer, who, next to the baker, is the tradesman who 
feeds the multitude. Indeed, much more of the people's 
money is spent in his shop than in any other. There would be 
no exaggeration in saying that groceries generally are 20 per 
cent, dearer in France than in England. Clothing, also, is 
much more expensive when value for money is considered. 
To the Anglo-Saxon, the French appear to be a people over- 
administered — an impression that is produced by the 
multiplicity of wheels in their administrative 
^*^ Wheeh.*'^^ machinery. One is administered in France 
from the cradle to the grave, and some time 
afterwards. From the hour that a new arrival has had his 
coming into the world registered at the mairie — and it must 
be done within twenty-four hours — until he is entitled to 
nothing more than a grave, the same Argus of administration 
has all his eyes upon him. This at any rate is the ideal that 
the official monster, composed of innumerable wheels within 
wheels, tries to live up to. Since the war of 1870 every male 
member of the community, whether in swaddling clothes 
or not, has acquired fresh importance in the eyes of the 
administration. The infant is at once put on the list of green 
fruit that the conscription expects to pick when ripe. The 
other sex receives the honour of being registered, but all 
through life is regarded as somewhat of a negligible quantity, 
unless a woman should develop talents which disturb society 
— -like the notorious Mme. Humbert, for example — and so 
make herself worthy of being regarded as a man. Occasion- 
ally a httle mistake is made about the sex at registration of 
birth, and when this happens it entails, some twenty years 
afterwards, a very unpleasant fuss. Officialdom, which has 
the fullest belief in its own infallibility, says, petticoats or no 
petticoats, the young man is a soldier. It is a very essential 

i6-(2398) 



242 France of the French 

part of the whole administrative system to stifle all objections 
by heaping formalities upon them ; and as the supply of these 
is unlimited, it is hoped apparently that the obstinacy of the 
young man who is prepared to swear most solemnly that he 
is not one will at length be overcome. 

Lest the foregoing remarks should be interpreted too widely, 
and not merely as indicating a prevailing state of mind 
associated with official traditions, it may be well to say that 
advantages, opportunities, and honours are now offered to 
women in France from which they were debarred in days 
not long past. For example, they are admitted to the Legion 
of Honour, and can practise both medicine and the law. In 
the post-offices women are employed precisely as they are 
in the United Kingdom. There is nothing at present, 
however, to indicate that the right of vote, either in municipal 
or in parliamentary elections, will be extended to them. Only 
in the case of a very few does their ambition point towards 
the franchise. For this reason a " suffragette " movement 
of any importance seems impossible in France of to-day. 

AH that is officially noted respecting a French citizen 
forms his etat-civil, and it is of high importance to him that 
it should be a clean bill. If he has been deprived of any of 
his rights as a citizen by a judicial sentence passed upon him, 
or a simple act of bankruptcy, he is a man with a bad mark, 
and cannot show satisfactory papers. Everyone who seeks 
employment must be prepared to show official " papers." 
A-lso, the traveller never knows when he will be called upon 
to produce what he may have in this way. Every member 
of the police and the gendarmerie (whose functions are those 
of county police on a military footing) has the word " papiers '* 
stamped indelibly upon his brain by repeating it so often. 
There is a real worship of " papers " in France, which goes 
with the veneration of formalities, enabling in this wise the 
Government to keep so many more officials connected with the 
various branches of public administration than it really needs. 

Anybody can obtain a very fair notion of the expedition 



Lights and Shadows 243 

with which pubhc business is transacted by entering a French 
post-office and sending a money order to somebody, and it 
will be all the better understood if a few more people are 
already waiting their turn to do the same thing. Let him 
watch the hard-worked damsel — who is pretty sure to be 
curt and ill-tempered because too much is expected of her — 
filling up all the little papers, and he will come away deeply 
impressed with the beauties of French organization. The 
plague of petits papiers in France is permanent. The French 
excel in organization. It has always been allowed that they 
have a genius for it. What is to be regretted is that they have 
so much. They double the necessary number of wheels and 
quantity of work, in order to make the sure doubly sure. 
This is called in England waste of time and money, but the 
English do not claim to possess the genius of organization. 

In one respect French organization is more expeditious than 
it need be, namely, in hustling people underground when 

they are certified to be dead. The person 
g ^.^ who dies to-day is expected to be buried the 

day after to-morrow. If any extension of 
time is asked for, a reason must be given, and there are trying 
formalities. Very rarely is it asked for. From time to time 
public uneasiness is caused by painful discoveries ; never- 
theless, the impression soon wears off, and a practice upheld, 
so it is argued, by the interest of the many, although unfair 
to a few, goes on as before. Some rather harrowing statistics 
have lately been published on this gruesome subject ; but, as 
they must have been mainly based on gravediggers' stories, 
it would be wise — at all events it would be comforting — not 
to place absolute reliance upon them. 

Here may be the place to say that there is a marked 
difference between French and English sentiment in the 

matter of funeral customs, and the question 
Customs ^^ religion has nothing to do with it. The 

English are instinctively disposed to keep 
their private sorrows to themselves, their family, and their 



244 France of the French 

very intimate friends ; the French, on the other hand, find 
consolation at such times in the sympathy of mere acquaint- 
ances. With this feehng, however, is intimately mingled 
the belief that the more imposing the ceremony, the greater 
the number of people attending it, the more honour is done 
to the memory of the dead. Consequently, when anybody 
dies in France, it is customary to send out invitations (lettres 
de faire part), not only to friends but to all acquaintances, 
to be present at the funeral. It is considered a point of 
politeness to do this. In the printed letter appear the names 
not only of near relatives, including little children, but of 
kindred far removed. The invitation is generally accepted, 
and often at the cost of much personal inconvenience. In 
no other way is the readiness of the French nature to offer 
sympathy more strikingly shown. Moreover, the custom 
proves the strength of family sentiment in France. There- 
fore, however much this ceremoniousness and effusiveness in 
relation to funeral observances may be distasteful to the 
Anglo-Saxon, let him not think lightly of it, and attribute it 
to superficiality of character. 

The French have this constant incentive to charity : their 
poor are always with them. There are no Boards of 

Guardians to look after them, and no work- 

The French houses into which they can be put out of 

and their Poor, sight. There are a few almshouses, or 

hospices, like those at Bicetre and Nanterre, 
near Paris, among charitable public institutions, but what 
are such drops of dew to the thirst of the desert ? To the 
penniless multitude who cannot, or will not, work, there is 
nothing but private charity or the prison. The blind, the 
paralysed, the armless and legless plead for alms at church 
doors and in the public places. Mendicity in public is 
officially forbidden and is punishable, but it is officially 
recognized that the cheapest way of dealing with the problem 
of pauperism is to leave private charity to deal with it. 
The State cannot afford to be generous with its prison 





Photo by 



A MUSSEL-GATHERER 



Neurdein Frens 



Lights and Shadows 245 

accommodation, which is very inadequate. The tramp who 
steals something, or breaks a window, in order to get food and 
a roof over his head in winter, is regarded as an inconvenient 
humorist. Life in common, which is the rule of French 
prisons in the case of petty offenders, makes the treatment 
much the same as that of an English workhouse — possibly 
more genial ; but the honest beggar cannot, by merely wishing 
it, get himself arrested and admitted as a guest in a State 
hotel, where there is nothing to pay. He must in some 
way make himself a public nuisance in order to enforce his 
claim. 

To the honour of the French be it said that they have a 
large stock of private charity for daily use. They are easily 
moved by the appeals of misery that come before their 
eyes, and there is a strong sentiment throughout the country 
against driving a beggar from the door, who only asks for 
bread. Such a thing as a poor-rate would be bitterly resented 
by the public, who would never believe that the money so 
raised would find its way to those in greatest need of it. They 
would suspect the official machine of oiling its wheels too 
freely. It is sad to note that the confidence of the French 
in administrative probity is far from unbounded. In the 
way of official charity there is the permanent organization 
of Public Assistance under State direction. This keeps up 
hospitals, takes charge of foundlings and abandoned children, 
most of whom are placed with peasants and are brought up 
to agricultural work, buries the pauper, and in other ways 
performs those unavoidable offices of charity which every 
State is bound to accept. If the Assistance Publique depended 
upon voluntary gifts, it would not get much ; therefore, in 
addition to what the Budget allows it, it takes a good deal 
with or without leave. A rather heavy toU, amounting to 
nine per cent., is levied upon the gross receipts of all theatres 
(subventioned or not) and other places of amusement. The 
money that changes hands at racecourses, under the legalized 
system of betting known as " Le pari mutuel," is also 



246 France of the French 

laid under contribution by the Public Assistance, and in 
this way bad habits are made to serve philanthropic 
purposes. 

Religion has always been in France the principal driving 
force of charitable work. It formed habits of private charity 
among the people by its influence in the course of ages, and 
many of those who now repudiate all religious doctrine are 
faithful to transmitted habits which were a gradual deposit 
of religion upon the sentiment of generations. The religious 
orders that devote their efforts mainly to practical charity, 
such as Les Filles de Saint- Vincent de Paul (popularly known 
as Sisters of Charity) and the Little Sisters of the Poor, have 
done a vast work in the past to relieve human suffering and 
wretchedness, and this is still continued on a reduced scale, 
and within the narrow limits now tolerated. The series of 
measures directed against religious orders of late years, 
inspired in the main by the motive of political reprisals, has 
had, among other effects, that of increasing the sufferings 
of the poor, who, victims of evil chance or of their own 
mistakes, flaws, and vices, have no hope left but in human 
charity. In all churches collections are regularly made for 
the poor, the distribution of the money thus obtained being left 
to the discretion of the cure, and in most of the communes 
throughout the country there is a lay organization called 
a Bureau de bienfaisance, under the superintendence of the 
mayor, for the alleviation of local distress. In Paris there is 
one in every arrondissement. 

Strange as it may seem, the pawning system in France is 

in a general sense one of the branches of Public Assistance, 

although under the direct control of local 

The Philan- authorities. The pawnbroker, strictly speak- 
thropic Pawn ' ^ r 

Shop. ii^gj does not exist in the country. If he 

tried to ply his trade in the English manner, 

he would be prosecuted as a usurer. The Mont de Pi6t6, the 

establishment where money is advanced on pledges under 

official control, is in theory a philanthropic one and a 



Lights and Shadows 247 

continuation of the charitable banks which, under the name 
of Monti di pietd, appeared in Italy in the fifteenth century. 
In every town of importance there is a Mont de Piete, the 
capital needed for making advances on pledges being derived 
from loans, donations, and occasionally subventions. The rate 
of interest charged throughout the country is not uniform. 
In Paris it is nearly eight per cent., whereas at Rouen it is 
more than nine, and at Angers only ij per cent. When the 
interest is so low as in the last case, it is obvious that the 
working expenses are charitably provided for. The theory 
is that the charges should never exceed the interest on money 
borrowed and what is sufficient to cover working expenses. 
Should there be a margin to the good, the poor must benefit 
by it. The system reduces the evils inseparable from pawning 
facilities to a minimum, and is incomparably better than 
the English one, which is an abusive traffic upon distress and 
improvidence. Not that the French system is free from 
abuses. The rule of the Mont de Piete is never to advance 
more than two-thirds of the realizable value of the articles 
pledged, and as the corporation of official valuers {commissaires- 
priseurs) connected with the Mont de Piete are liable for the 
consequences of their errors, their appraisement of the 
value is usually so low that outside speculators whose 
business is to buy pawntickets have long been in existence. 
They undertake to sell the tickets again to the owners of 
the pledges after a stipulated lapse of time, but the interest 
they charge for the accommodation is very different from 
that of the Mont de Piet6. In point of fact, those who have 
recourse to these traffickers rarely redeem. ^ 

* In France the slang term for the pawnshop in most common use is 
" my aunt," whereas in England it is " my uncle." Why the humour 
of the people on both sides of the Channel should have so nearly 
coincided in this particular direction is a subject of enquiry 
recommended to those who have plenty of leisure. The research 
might be extended to those sayings the turn of which is reversed on 
each side of the Channel, such as " Taking French-leave " in England, 
and " Filer k I'Anglaise " in France. 



248 France of the French 

There is an excellent tradition in France, which now-a-days 
is much more respected than observed, namely, that nothing 
stronger than sugared water should be drunk 
between meals. The eau sucree of other 
days, which was considered almost an extravagance when 
sugar was a luxury, has quite gone out of fashion, and it is 
very rare to see anyone but a lady whose views belong to the 
past now indulging in this innocent form of dissipation. 
Women who are at all in the fashionable movement, or whose 
aspirations are this way pointed, have taken to afternoon 
tea— another result of the corrupting influence of British 
manners ; while the men fill up the blank spaces of the day 
between meals, or between spells of work, very much as the 
majority of Englishmen do, allowing for certain differences 
of taste. 

The truth is that sobriety and frugality in France are not 
what they were. The peasant, except in a few places, where 
his circumstances have been greatly favoured by modern 
conditions, has changed little or not at all in his mode of life ; 
but it is otherwise with the working class of the towns and 
the lower bourgeoisie. Their tastes and needs, real or supposed, 
now include a great deal as indispensable which a few decades 
ago was dispensed with, or only used exceptionally. The 
food is less simple and inexpensive in character — without 
reference to the general increase of cost — than it was in the 
memory of many who are not yet centenarians, while the 
use of alcoholic drinks has extended in a manner very 
formidable to the public health, although this undoubted 
evil has been of great assistance to Ministerial equilibrists 
harassed by the problems of the budget. The excise duty 
on all alcohol has been greatly increased of late years, but 
this has had no appreciable effect in arresting the upward 
movement of the consumption. An inevitable result has 
been to stimulate the demand for cheaper and more 
deleterious spirit. The sale of all alcohol, from whatever 
substance it may be derived, is practically free in France, 



Lights and Shadows 249 

provided that the duty be paid on it, and this is more than 

the cost of the spirit itself, such as it is, consumed by the 

masses, and which is mainly obtained from beet -root. Brandy 

or spirit derived from the distillation of wine is too expensive 

for ordinary use. The same applies to the spirit obtained 

from cider, and to which the name calvados is given, for the 

reason that it is chiefly distilled in the department of Calvados, 

although only when apples are plentiful. According to 

recent returns, the annual consumption of pure alcohol in 

France amounts to about one litre and a quarter per 

individual. 

There is a Bill before Parliament having for its object to 

restrict the number of debits or shops in which alcoholic 

liquors are sold, by making them propor- 

The Licensing ^^Q^ate to the number of inhabitants in 
System. 

a commune or arrondissement, as the case 

may be. As matters now are, anyone may take out a' licence 
for retailing wines, spirits, and other alcoholic liquors, 
the payment being regulated according to locality. The 
multiplicity of debits and cafes, which are really the same 
thing with another name, in all towns, proves that the outlay 
does not stand in the way of enterprise. The licence is 
distinct from the patente, a tribute that every tradesman 
pays as direct taxation for the right of carrying on a business. 
The amount of this also depends upon locality and the 
assumed amount of trade done. Wine, beer, and cider are 
officially termed " hygienic drinks," and a law was passed 
some years since to favour the sale of these by removing or 
reducing the octroi dues. (In Paris wine on entering is now 
free from octroi.) The primary motive was to help the wine 
grower, and it was supposed that the cheapening of wine 
would cause a decline in the sale of spirits and the various 
artificial drinks of which alcohol is the basis. But expecta- 
tions were not realized. That a forced diminution in the 
number of debits will impose a check on the further increase 
of alcoholism in France, is a question on which opinion is 



250 France of the French 

much divided. What appears most likely to happen, should 
such a measure be adopted, would be an increase of business 
to the houses remaining open. The principal source of the 
mischief is the traffic in liquors so little " hygienic " that 
they are really poisons. 

A very considerable part of the 532,500 hectolitres of 

alcohol, or thereabouts, consumed annually is sold in 

combination with vegetable essences, under 

Absinthe and the name of aperitifs. These are mostly 
other "aperitifs. "absinthe and bitters variously composed. 
The habit of taking an aperitif at least once 
a day has come to be regarded by a multitude of Frenchmen, 
especially among the inhabitants of towns, as almost a 
necessary one. Custom gives its sanction to this aid to 
appetite a little before the dinner hour, and it is usually 
sought for at the cafe. Most people are familiar with the 
animated appearance of the Paris boulevards at the heure 
d' absinthe — a rather elastic hour, but somewhere between 
six and half-past seven. If the aperitif were only taken at 
that time no great harm would come from it, but the use 
of these drinks at various hours of the day has spread of late 
years in a manner that has caused many a cry of alarm to go 
up. The Academy of Medicine has repeatedly condemned 
the habit of drinking alcohol combined with essences which 
have a direct and agitating action upon the nervous system, 
and thus become veritable nerve poisons, and has urged upon 
the Government the absolute prohibition of their sale. 
Absinthe has been especially denounced on account of the 
maniacal impulses that have been so often traced to its use. 
The intoxication that it produces is liable to take the form 
of furious excitement, and when the habit of absinthe drinking 
has been set up, it is one of the most difficult to overcome. 
Belgium and Switzerland have already in the public interest 
taken rigorous measures to prevent the manufacture and 
consumption of absinthe within their frontiers ; but although 
no country has suffered so much as France from the modern 



Lights and Shadows 251 

use to which wormwood has been put, it is still waiting 
for an act of legislative courage that can hardly be long 
delayed. 

The taste for sports and outdoor games of all kinds has 
grown much stronger in France during the last twenty years. 

Long before this period, however, horse- 
Sports and racing was a favourite pastime with the 
Games. Parisians. The passion for the turf and 

the appearance of the book-maker in France 
— mixed blessings some people say, whilst others deny that 
they are blessings at all — were among the first-fruits of that 
Anglomania which was talked of some decades before the 
Third Republic came forth from the incubator of national 
disillusion and resentment. The movement received a great 
impetus from the foundation of the society " pour 1' ameliora- 
tion de la race chevaline," in 1833. The races at Longchamps 
and elsewhere round Paris are under the auspices of this 
Society, which from its fortress, the Jockey Club, lays down 
rules and decides all questions concerning the turf within 
the wide latitude that the law leaves to it. Horse-racing 
and betting are inseparable. The French contracted the 
betting taste and habit under earlier influence than that of 
the entente cordiale. It became such an evil in Paris that 
special legislation had to be employed to curb it in recent 
years. It was placed under official control, and the business 
of the book-maker, which must have become very lucrative, 
judging from the number of experts that it drew to France 
from across the Channel, received a crushing blow. The 
system of " Le pari mutuel," which is officially sanctioned, 
does not prevent betting, but it renders the traffic of the 
book-maker difficult and dangerous. 

Open-air games, such as lawn tennis and golf, are now 
played by the French to an extent that points an almost 
violent contrast to the social habits of twenty years ago, 
when clubs for such pastimes were hardly dreamt of, whereas 
they are now to be found wherever society gathers, and are 



252 France of the French 

very often Anglo-French. Formerly one saw nothing of 
the kind to bring the young of both sexes together but the 
game of croquet. Even more remarkable is the progress 
that has been made in regard to the rougher athletic sports 
of boys and men. Cricket, although known, has not yet 
become naturalized in France, but football has. The coming 
in of the bicycle had previously done much to create a zest 
for outdoor life and exercise, and we have a fresh generation 
of Frenchmen, more athletic, more vigorous, and less prone 
than the preceding one to spend hours of leisure in mere 
sauntering, or in caf^s and billiard rooms. These remarks 
apply to the middle class throughout its ramifications. 
Among the working class there is little taste for athletic 
games and sports. As for soldiering, for the mere pleasure 
of the training and exercise, the bare notion of such a thing 
hardly comes within the range of the conceivable. The 
same might well be the case in England if military service 
were made obligatory. 

The way in which the French belonging to the ever-increasing 
class who seek fashionable amusements have taken to golf, 
and especially the dexterity they have acquired in it, have 
astonished their teachers, France having furnished a world's 
champion golf player in M. Armand Massy. A game 
introduced originally by English and American residents 
and visitors for their own amusement at such places 
as Pau, Biarritz, Cannes, and Dieppe, has evidently 
taken root in the soil, promising not only to stay, but to 
spread. 

Out-of-door games that may be termed national, such 
as bowls, skittles, jeu de paume, are now rarely played by 
men except of the peasant or working class. In the Basque 
country, which only occupies in France the south-east corner, 
marked by the Pyrenees and the coast as far north as Biarritz, 
jeu de pelote, a variety of tennis, is very generally played by 
the inhabitants irrespective of class. 

Motoring is regarded in France as a sport, and with the 



Lights and Shadows 253 

wealthy, or well-to-do classes, over a very wide social range, 

it now takes precedence of all others. Its influence upon 

national habits and modes of life has 

Motoring and ^^^^^ enormous, and not altogether salutary. 

its Influence. _ , _ , ' ° . y. 

It has led to extravagance m expendi- 
ture among a great number of persons who can ill bear 
the strain they have thus placed upon their resources. 
It appears to be modifying national characteristics. The 
growing taste for outdoor excitement which, in connection 
with motoring, has become a passion, is rendering the French 
mind more superficial in various ways. The influence can 
be noted in the arts, in literature, and in conversation. The 
automobile industry in France, as well as the public 
inconvenience arising from the abuses of this new 
means of locomotion, are spoken of under '* Science and 
Invention." 

The old jokes at the expense of the French sportsman, 

wonderfully coated, capped, and gaitered, with gun en 

bandouliere, going forth to slay anything 

XV "^j^" furred and feathered that cannot be classed 
Nimrod. . , • -. , 

as a domestic bird or beast, regardless of its 

size and posture, resolute to take advantage of it if possible 

in moments of contemplation, or digestion, have had their 

day. It is hardly fair to judge French sportsmen in general 

by the pelii bourgeois of Paris, who goes out into the 

country on Sunday in grand Nimrodic array and expects 

to give a pleasant surprise to his family, if he is so fortunate 

as to bring home a tomtit that paid the penalty of excessive 

confidence while it was swinging on a naked branch. There 

is no lack of Frenchmen who can shoot well, who observe the 

rules of the game, and who do not dress themselves like 

sportsmen of operetta. If they do not hesitate to shoot a 

fox when they get the chance, it is because the fox is simply 

regarded in France as a noxious animal like the wolf and the 

otter, and much more so than the boar, which, although 

destructive, can be eaten. 



254 France of the French 

Much has changed in French notions of sport in the social 
regions where the general movements of the world are watched, 
and ideas are regulated accordingly, but 
A Hard there still remains the typical Nimrod of 
Country for the soil who kills everything and eats almost 
Wild Life. everything furred or feathered. To him 
small birds of all kinds are simply ** petits 
oiseaux," and when threaded on a spit, with bits of bacon 
to keep them company, are easily raised to the dignity of 
ortolans. To the rustic gunner the magpie and the squirrel 
are likewise savoury morsels. But the revolution that has 
taken place in firearms has gone far to lessen the destruction 
of small birds by this means The cost of a cartridge gives 
matter for reflection. In the days when the percussion cap 
was in general use, there was much less consideration for 
wild life. Of late years legislation has moved a good deal in 
the direction of protecting many wild birds that were formerly 
delivered over to the netter and fowler to work their will 
upon ; but the net, if not the gun, is still very busy in com- 
passing their destruction, especially when they are on their 
passage or are fleeing before a snowstorm from the north. 
The scarcity of the larger song birds in France — blackbirds 
and thrushes — is well known. Unfortunately, it is not only 
the coarser kind of rustic who values them much more as 
food than as melodists. 

There is very little preservation of game in France by 

landowners. An ordinary gun licence, which costs little 

more than £i, generally gives the one who 

Shooting -j^^g pg^-^ £^j. -^ plenty of ground to shoot over, 

but with what result depends of course upon 
himself and the locality. In the wilder parts of the country, 
partridges (red-legged), hares, and woodcock are fairly 
plentiful, but in the more populous and cultivated districts, 
those who go forth to shoot must be prepared to expend 
much patience in obtaining small results. Strictly speaking, 
a gun licence is only serviceable in the commune in which 



Lights and Shadows 255 

it is taken out, but the rule is not rigorously enforced. A 
part of the money paid is a local toll, and the rest goes to 
the State. If a landowner objects to his ground being shot 
over, he must put up a notice, but this is rarely done unless 
the game is really preserved. The open and close seasons 
vary in different parts of the country, and the dates are fixed 
every year, according to the state of the crops and the game, 
by Presidential decree. 

The gambling propensity is no more characteristic of the 

French than it is of the rest of human nature. All races are 

well tarred with this brush. The extent to 

Lotteries and which the disposition becomes a national vice 
Gambling. depends upon the facilities that are afforded, 
or tolerated by the law : these are the 
microbe's bouillon de culture. There can be no doubt that 
the Government of late years has extended the most benevolent 
protection to a great number and variety of lottery schemes, 
although lotteries are not, strictly speaking, legal in France. 
One cannot be organized without the sanction of the Executive. 
The object being philanthropic, the unfailing argument is 
that the end justifies the means. Exceptionally it may do so, 
but the multiplicity of these schemes for raising money by 
the facile device of appealing to the propensity already spoken 
of threatens to make the lottery habit in France what it is 
in Italy. The old-fashioned French habit of gradually filling 
the symbolical stocking with savings offers a better guarantee 
of national security. 

It is undeniable that one of the social symptoms that 

cannot escape notice, and which should be noticed very 

seriously by those whom it concerns, is the 

G ^ bHn ^ increase of gambling in all its forms in France 

of recent years. The phenomenon is to be 

observed in every class of society. The State takes toll of 

the gambling habit, and fosters what it affects to condemn. 

Gambling establishments are theoretically illegal, but they 

abound everywhere under the name of clubs and casinos. 



256 France of the French 

Every little place of pleasure and recreation has now its 
casino, and at the more important of these large sums of 
money are left annually at the tables. The State, having 
qualms of conscience in respect of petits chevaux, roulette, and 
baccarat at these innocent establishments, hit upon the 
convenient moral solution not long since of putting its own 
sop in the pan. The tax-gatherer was required to attend 
and see that the State was not cheated of its just share of the 
gravy, which is expressed arithmetically by the words 15 per 
cent. No other games than those mentioned may be played 
in the casinos, not even " bridge," of which the vogue in 
France is fast increasing. It has been officially stated that 
the money derived from the tax on gambling will, after 
deducting the expenses of collection, be applied to " useful 
works." 

The gambling woman has multiplied in France within the 

memory of many people. She exhibits her graces on all 

the racecourses, but is especially a curious 

The Gambling ^i^^y ^^ ^j^g seaside casinos. She is not 
Woman. -^ 

necessarily of light and flexible views on 

the score of respectable principles. She is often enough a 
renfiere who puts by a certain sum regularly for her annual 
dissipation, which is to sit at the gambling table of a seaside 
casino several hours a day, laying down and sometimes 
gathering in money, quite convinced that this is the most 
delightful way of understanding " bains de mer.'' Or she 
may be the wife of a hard-working business man in Paris, 
who can only leave his shop, or office, for a " week-end," 
but who is consoled by the thought that his family are bene- 
fiting by the cool, salt breezes on the coast. He arrives 
from Paris on Saturday evening by the " husbands' train," 
yearning for the refreshment of the sea and a brief, restful 
time in the bosom of his family. Then he learns, by instal- 
ments, that during the week his wife has put all the ready 
money on " little horses," or roulette, and lost it ; or he may 
not learn it ; she may prefer to say nothing about it, but to 



Lights and Shadows 257 

borrow of a friend and try her luck again. He may know 
a good deal before the end of the month. There is usually 
a baccarat-room at these casinos, where those can find it who 
like play more exciting than is provided by the salle de jeux 
for the crowd. 

The word pornographic came into current newspaper 
use in Paris not many years ago, to describe a certain kind 
of literature and journalism the reverse of 
The prudish. It is needless to indicate more 

Tide.^ ^ plainly the character and drift of this litera- 
ture. It is not an article of exclusively 
French manufacture, but it cannot be denied that the relax- 
ation of the censorship in France, which has whittled away 
restriction upon the liberty of the Press almost to nothing, 
has made matters very easy for those writers who for the 
sake of gain are ready to pander to depravity. Such writers 
spring up like mushrooms in all countries where there is a 
demand for them, or rather, where they can work without 
fear of consequences, for the demand is universal. 

The Parisians object to the comparison that has been 

made between their capital and antique Babylon in the 

matter of laxity of all kinds, and they have 

Where is the the " retort courteous " always ready; that 

new Babylon ? if other Babylons did not overflow into Paris, 

the moral atmosphere of their own city would 

be almost pure. In this they are sufficiently right to make 

others wrong, which is as much as can be expected of any 

argument. The most outrageous amusements of Paris find 

in foreign money their chief source of revenue, and of the 

total output of pornographic "art" and literature a very 

large percentage is either sent or taken out of the country. 

The hoof of Satyrus is under many tables that are not of 

French make, and all the lax divinities who have taken to 

fashionable clothes are of the " world " that knows no 

frontiers. The whole mischief moves round a question of 

law and police. That French legislators have almost ceased 

17— (2398) 



258 France of the French 

to perceive the need of any protection of public morals 
from the licentious productions of the press, both literary 
and pictorial, the eyes of all can see by too conspicuous 
evidence ; but the legislator's indifference to the matter is 
half excused by that of the public. Saints have never shown 
ambition to enter Parliament, and the men who are there 
are neither better nor worse than the many-headed body 
they represent. The Republic cannot take credit to itself 
for having favoured austerity in public morals. It is hard 
to believe by contrast with what we know to-day of con- 
temporary literature and the drama, that, under the Second 
Empire, so much criticised for its frivolity, Madame Bovary 
and La Dame aux Camelias both entailed prosecutions on 
the ground of their immorality. 

It must be allowed, however, that there is at least one 
exception in the Senate, namely, M. Berenger, who for a good 
many years has been fighting valiantly for 
The Crusade jj^q "decency of the street," and preaching 
Indecency. ^ crusade against all the thrones and domi- 
nations of pornography. More than this, he 
keeps a whip for feminine nakedness on the stage, and he 
used it with effect not long since when, instead of employing 
statues to fiU up backgrounds in choregraphic spectacles, 
the nude female form was introduced in several Paris music- 
halls. But for all this the public has done him little honour 
beyond giving him the nickname *' Father Modesty " (" Pere 
la Pudeur "), and so few men of influence share his zeal that 
one asks what will happen when this excellent watch-dog of 
public morals, who was born in 1830, disappears. A little 
incident says much with regard to the licence of the press 
of to-day. A few months since proceedings were taken against 
a Paris printer for employing apprentices under sixteen 
upon a new edition of M. Pierre Louys' book. Aphrodite. 
It was on account of the illustrations that the intervention of 
the law was asked for. The court decided that the illustra- 
tions in question were dangerous to boys younger than 



Lights and Shadows 259 

sixteen, and the inference to be drawn from the judgment 
was that after this age an aesthetic sense might be expected 
to come to the rescue of the young imagination. 

The relations between masters and servants in France are 
not quite what they are in England. In the first place, the 

law regulating these relations is somewhat 

Masters and different in the two countries. Domestic 

Servants. servants in France are engaged by the month, 

excepting in certain rural districts which have 
their own customs, whose antiquity gives them the force of 
law ; but eight days' notice suffices on both sides. " Madame, 
I give you my eight days," or the more polite third person 
form, " I give Madame my eight days," is an announcement 
with which the ears of most ladies who employ servants in 
France are familiar. If a servant is forced to leave without 
notice, he or she can claim eight days' wages only, but there 
are cases of bad conduct that annul this right. Thorny 
questions arise on the point, and the juge de paix, a magistrate 
who is seldom far off, and whose chief function is to pour oil 
on troubled waters and prevent litigation going further finds 
in listening to the quarrels between mistresses and servants 
much of the pleasant occupation which is given him in return 
for a stipend often calculated, apparently, with the object 
of fostering the virtues of a frugal life. The maid-servant in 
France is not quite the proud and independent citoyenne that 
she is in England, although living under a Republic the 
contrary might be more in the logic of things. She is, 
especially if country-bred, just a little influenced by the 
feudalism of the past, which has drifted like mist across the 
revolutionary chasms, and she accepts the trappings and the 
suits of servitude as if they were a part of the eternal order. 
Moreover, the ordinary honne of the small French household 
recognizes the justice of the view that her talents must be 
versatile ; therefore her time is well filled up with general 
work under her mistress's eye. The Frenchwoman who 
has not the courage to look into her own kitchen is a very 



260 France of the French 

rare person, except in the small class of the wealthy and 
luxurious, and even then it is not the courage but the interest 
that is wanting. It is the good management and capacity 
to direct others, so characteristic of the French bourgeoise^ that 
accounts for this, that a family that would need three servants 
in England can manage very well with two in France, and 
it is a very common thing for a single one to be kept where 
two would be considered indispensable in England. With 
regard to her servants' morals, provided that her interests do 
not suffer from them, the French mistress, at all events in 
towns, practises a blandly philosophical indifference. Her 
handmaiden is expected to furnish work, not virtue. The 
French domestic has good qualities, but those who expect 
to find for the asking in France, servants worthy of the 
Montyon Prize of Virtue, which has been awarded to a few 
by the Academy, expect too much. 

The tenacity of the duelling custom in France surprises 
many who are not French. The question always asked is : 
Why does the law virtually sanction such a 
^^^' survival of barbarism ? That the law treats 
the practice with indulgent indifference is obvious. The 
liberty to settle quarrels in this way was never greater than 
it is now under the Republic. The Second Empire was far 
less accommodating to duellists. That the custom is a remnant 
of barbarism is a proposition open to controversy ; that it is 
anti-Christian is indisputable. In theory it upholds polite- 
ness of manners and the *' point of honour " between men, 
and prevents many disputes of a private and personal nature — 
the details of which, if known, would bring ridicule upon the 
parties, and perhaps scandal upon others — from coming before 
the courts. Mitigated as its attendant evils are by various 
precautions, and the almost invariable absence of an intention 
on the part of principals to do grievous injury, the consequences 
of duelling as a national custom are not considered sufficiently 
grave to warrant rigorous measures of repression, so long as 
the public does not ask for them in an unequivocal manner. 



Lights and Shadows 261 

The public has hitherto shrugged its shoulders whenever 

there has been a question of agitating in this direction. The 

civil law puts a very effective check on duelling au grand 

serieux. When a man kills another in a duel, he is prosecuted 

for homicide, but unless he has been guilty of some flagrant 

irregularity according to the " Code of Honour," his acquittal 

may be taken as certain. But the matter does not end here. 

The widow or family of the dead man claims damages, and 

the civil jury may then be expected to make the victor pay 

dearly for his victory. Supposing the prospect of vengeance 

to be sweet, nothing leads to reflection upon its real value so 

much as the thought of having to pay a round sum for it. 

Thus, considerations of lucre may foster fair morals and soften 

the manners of men, who without this persuasive voice of a 

practical conscience might yield to ferocious impulses. 

During the last twenty years there have probably not been 

so many as a dozen fatal duels in France, and most, if not all, 

of these were the result of accident or inexperience. Quarrels 

that are settled by an appeal to arms are now very rare, 

except among politicians and journalists. M. Clemenceau has 

figured in several duels ; a remarkable one, although it was 

bloodless, being with M. Paul Deroulede. His favourite 

weapon is the pistol, which makes him rather disconcerting 

as an adversary, especially as he has the reputation of being 

an excellent shot. 

The French are not a cruel people, but their indifference to 

the sufferings of animals has often surprised strangers in 

their land. Sympathy with animals is largely 

Men and ^ matter of culture and refinement. In 
Beasts. 

England it has spread downward from the 

social regions where the higher sensibilities have long been 

cultivated, and respect for the feeling has been enforced by 

law. Thus the masses have been educated to understand 

the baseness and cowardice of cruelty. Little or nothing 

similar has taken place in France. There is a law (la loi 

Gramont) which theoretically protects " domestic animals " 



262 France of the French 

from cruelty, but it is practically allowed to remain a dead 
letter, notwithstanding that there is a society for the repression 
of cruelty under the powers conferred by this statute. In 
the case of private individuals there is great dread of all 
the inconvenience and worry attending a prosecution, and 
the indifference of the police to acts of cruelty is sadly general. 
Beasts of burden are frequently worked when in a state that 
renders this use of them barbarous ; but a protest is seldom 
raised, and still more rarely is there any active interference. 
Animals are commonly killed in the open market, and before 
the eyes of the buyer in a manner that should be prohibited. 
Rabbits, for instance, are slowly bled to death, and in a way 
particularly atrocious. One is compelled to ask what has 
become of the sensibility of women who are witnesses of 
such acts and morally participate in them — women whose 
social position often makes it impossible to admit the plea 
of ignorance. The refining influences of modern life appear 
in France to have passed over or around this question of 
man's duty towards his humble servants, the animals that 
are placed in his power. The official sanction given of late 
j^ears to bull-fighting after the Spanish manner in the south 
of France, under the threat of electoral reprisals if it were 
refused, indicates positive retrogression in this particular 
sense, and is disturbingly suggestive of that repeated cry 
of the Roman populace after the necessity had arisen for 
keeping it in good temper with sanguinary amusements, 
" Panem et circenses ! " But the southern French do not 
yet expect to have these things for nothing. A taste for the 
sports of the amphitheatre was lately carried so far at 
Marseilles that a bull and tiger fight was offered as a public 
spectacle, but it is satisfactory to add that this was dis- 
countenanced by the authorities, although police intervention 
did not come until the two much worried beasts had declined 
the encounter in their own interest. 



CONCLUSION 

It will have been perceived that no attempt has here been 
made to present pictures of France all brightness without some 
shadows for contrast. Where, however, is the country in 
which there are no shadows in respect of habits, practices, and 
common tendencies that need correcting and refining ? This 
book has not been written by one who believes that his own 
race and country have a monopoly of the human virtues, or 
have reached approximate perfection in public or in private 
life. There can be no such perfection anywhere. But the 
nations can all help themselves in working towards the ideal 
by studying one another thoughtfully, without prejudice, with 
justice and kindness. Everyone of them has something to 
learn from each of the others. There are no two nations in 
Europe with such community of aims, views, aspirations, and 
poHtical interests as have the French and the English. By 
studying, and also criticizing, one another, frankly but without 
ill-nature, they cannot but draw from so much that at present 
unites them greater and more lasting profit. 



263 



INDEX 



About, Edmond, writer, 90 
Absinthe and other aperitifs, 

250 
Adam, Juliette Lambert, novel- 
ist, 82 
Administrative employments, 23 
Administrative wheels, 241 
Advertising in the Press, 91 
Affection : Strength of filial 

duty in France, 11-12 
Agricultural labourer. The, 227 
Agricultural syndicates and 

banks, 229 
Aicard, Jean, poet, 67 
Aid to art in France, 148 
Anthropometry, 213 
Anti-clericalism : The rupture 

between the Republic and the 

Vatican, 39 
Antistreptococcic serums, 200 
Antiseptic treatment, 197 
Antoine, Andre, actor, 188 
Architecture, Genius of French, 

111 
styles: Gothic, 112-113; 

Norman, 113; Romanesque, 

116 

of to-day, 120 



Arene, Emmanuel, journalist 

and politician, 106 
Arv^de, Barine, novelist, 84 
Assistance Publique, The, 245 
Astronomy, 210 
Augier, Emile, dramatist, 157 
Auvergne, Architecture of, 115 
AutomobiUsm, 213, 253 
Aviation, 216 



Bacteriologists, 198-202 
Baffier, Eugdne, sculptor, 155 



Banville, Theodore de, poet and 

prose writer, 57, 60 
Baron, Louis, actor, 187 
Barrere, Camille, diplomatist, 99 
Barretta-Worms, Mme., actress, 

183 
Barrias, sculptor, 151 
Bartet, Mile., actress, 183 
Bartholdi, sculptor, 155 
Bartholome, sculptor, 155 
Baschet, M., painter, 147 
Bastien -Lepage, painter, 127 
Battle with Death, The, 197 
Baudry, Paul, painter, 130 
Bazin, Rene, writer, 80 
Barres, Maurice, novelist, 74 
Baudelaire, Charles, writer, 51 
Becque, Henri, dramatist, 162 
Becquerel, scientific chemist, 208 
Bergerat, Emile, journalist, 105, 

190 
Bernard, Claude, 203 
Bernhardt, Sarah, actress, 177 ; 

referred to also on pp. 62, 162, 

174, 181 
Bert, Paul, 203 
Berthelot, Marcelin, scientific 

chemist, 204 
Bertillon, Alphonse (Anthro- 
pometry), 213 
Binet, A., painter, 143 
Bisson, Alexandre, dramatist, 

167 
Bloc Republicain, The, 29, 50 
Bonheur, Rosa, painter, 145 
Bonnat, Leon, painter, 136 
Bouchard, H., sculptor, 156 
Boucher, Jean, sculptor, 155 
Bouguereau, William, painter, 

128 
Boulangism, references to, 43, 

47, 49, 96 
Boulevard Press, The, 100 



265 



266 



Index 



Bourget, Paul, novelist, 73 

Bourgeoisie, The, 8 

Brand es, Mile. Marthe, actress, 

183 
Brasseur, Albert, actor, 187 
Breton, Jules, painter, 145 
Breton, Emile, painter, 146 
Briand, Aristide, statesman, 40 
Brieux, Eugene, dramatist, 167 
Brisson, Adolphe, critic, 85, 91 
Brisson, Henri, statesman, 43 
Broglie, de, statesman, 27 
Brunetiere, Ferdinand, critic, 84 
Bubonic plague. The bacillus of, 

200 
Buffet, A., painter, 146 
Buffet, statesman, 27 
Busson, painter, 145 



Cabanel, Alexandre, painter, 

134 
Cable, L,, painter, 146 
Calmette, Dr., 203 
Cancer researches, 201 
Carnot, Sadi, statesman, 30 
Carrel, Armand, journalist, 92 
Carriere, Eugene, painter, 146 
Capus, Alfred, dramatist, 173 
Casimir-Perrier, statesman, 31 
Cassagnac, Paul de, journalist, 

93 
Catholic-Republican clubs, 47 
Cavaignac, statesman, 46 
Cazin, Charles, painter, 140 
Censorship, Its effect upon the 

Press, 102 

of plays, 176 

Changes in French political life, 

26 
Chantemesse, Dr. Andre, 200 
Charcot, Dr. Jean, 212 
Charmes, Francis, political 

writer, 107 
Chateaux of the past and 

present, 121 
Chavannes, Puvis de, painter, 

129 
Cheap Press, The, 107 



Chemistry, 204 
Chenu, Fleury, painter, 145 
Children, Influences which go to 
restrict the number of, 21-22 

Parental leading strings, 

23 ; Education, 13 ; Effect of 
divorce, 24 
Church architecture, 120 
Claretie, Jules, critic and novel- 
ist, 85, 180 
Clemenceau, statesman, 34 ; 
journalist, 99 ; other refer- 
ences, 27, 30, 42, 49 
Cochin, Denys, politician, 47 
Colonial expansion, 36 
Combes, Emile, statesman, 38 
Comedie Fran9aise, The, 180 
Composers of music, 195 
Comte, Auguste, 52 
Comic and satirical papers, 109 
Conscription, 241-242 
Conservatoire, The, 176 
Constant, Benjamin, painter, 

131 
Contraband traffic, 233 
Contrasts, A land of strong, 231 
Coppee, Fran9ois, poet, 61, 57, 

157 
Coquelin, Constant and Alex- 
andre, actors, 180 
Costeau, G., painter, 146 
Coulevain, Mme. Pierre, novelist, 

83 
Courbet, Gustave, painter, 126, 

151 
Conservative leaders in Parlia- 
ment, 47 
Crochet, J. E., painter, 146 
Cult of form in poetry. The, 60 
Curel, Fran90is de, dramatist, 

171 
Curie, Pierre and Mme., scien- 
tists, 206 



D 



Dagnan-Bouveret, 

141 

Dagneau, A., painter, 146 
Dalou, sculptor, 151 



painter. 



Index 



267 



Daudet, Alphonse, novelist, 68 
Daudet, Mme. Alphonse, writer, 

83 
Debienne, Mile., sculptor, 156 
" Decadents," The, 65 
Decorative painting, 128 
Dejazet, reference to, 161 
Delaistre, A., painter, 146 
Delaunay, Elie, painter, 135 
Delcasse, statesman, 37 
Delibes, Leo, composer of music, 

194 
Delorme, Philibert, sculptor, 148 
Demont-Breton, Mme., painter, 

146 
Deprez, Marcel, scientist, 209 
Deroulede, Paul, poet and politi- 
cian, 66 
Deschamp, Emile, poet, 57 
Deschanel, Paul, politician, 43 
Detaille, Edouard, painter, 142 
Dierx, Leon, poet, 57, 67 
Dieterle, G. P., painter, 146 
Dieulafoy, Mme., writer, 84 
Dilettantism, 75-76 
Diplomacy and the Press, 99 
Dirigible balloons, 215 
Division of land, 219 
Divorce : Its effect on family 

life, 23 ; M. Paul Bourget's 

novel, 24 
Domestic animals. Treatment of, 

261 
Donnay, Maurice, dramatist, 

166 
Doumic, R., critic, 85 
Doyen. Dr. E. L., 201 
Dramatic criticism, 90 
Dramatists, 1 57 
Dreyfus, references to the case, 

43, 44, 46 
Drumont, Edouard, journalist, 

95, 92 
Dubois, Paul, sculptor, 155 
Dudley, Mile., actress, 183 
Duelling, 93, 94, 260 
Dufau, Mile. C. H., painter, 147 
Duflos, Raphael, actor, 184 
Duhem, Marie, painter, 146 



Dumas, Alexandre (fils), drama- 
tist, 158 
Duran, Carolus, painter, 137 

E 

Education, 13 

Electricity and electro-chem- 
istry, 209 
Exploration, 212 
Explosives, The new, 205 

F 

Fabre, Emile, dramatist, 174 
Falgui^re, sculptor, 151 
Faguet, E., critic, 85 
Falli^res, Armand, President of 

the Republic, 31-32 
Family life, 6 

Faure, Felix, statesman, 30 
Favre, Jules, statesman, 27 
Ferry, Jules, statesman, 36, 38 
Figaro, The, 100 
Flammarion, Camille, astron- 
omer, 211 
Flameng, Franfois, painter, 139 
Flaubert, Gustave, novelist. 55 
Fortified churches, 118 
Fouqueray, painter, 143 
Fouquier, Henry, journalist, 101 
Foreigners, Assimilation of, 5 
France, Anatole, novelist, 75 
Franck, C6sar, composer of 

music, 194 
Freemasonry in France, 238 
Premier, E., sculptor, 155 
French girl. The (see also 

Marriages), 21 
Frenchwoman, Domestic and 

practical qualities of, 18, 19 ; 

the working woman, 20 
Freycinet, Charles Louis de, 

statesman, 36 
Friant, Emile, painter, 147 
Funeral customs, 243 



Gambetta, statesman and jour- 
nalist, 17, 36, 48, 49, 99 



268 



Index 



Gambling, 255, 256 

Gardet, sculptor, 155 

Gautier, Theophile, poet and 

dramatic critic, 57, 60, 90 

, Judith, novelist, 84 

Gentlemen-Peasants, 223 
Gerome, Jean Leon, painter, 134 
Gervex, Henri, painter, 147 
Girard, A., painter, 146 
Girardin, Emilede, journalist, 91 
Goncourt, de, the brothers, 54, 56 
Goujon, Jean, sculptor, 148 
Gounod, Charles, composer of 

music, 192 
Granier, Mme. Jeanne, actress, 

186 
Grevy, Jules, statesman, 30, 34 
" Gyp " (Comtesse de Mira- 

beau-Martel), novelist, 83 

H 

Hading, Mme. Jane, (Jeannette 

Hadingue), actress, 187 
Halevy, Ludovic, author and 

playwright, 77, 160 
Hanotaux, Gabriel, statesman, 
historian, and journalist, 84, 
99 
Hanoteau, painter, 145 
Haraucourt, Edmond, poet, 67 
Harduin, Henri, journalist, 104 
Harpignies, painter, 145 
Hasty burials, 243 
Hebrard, journalist, 106 
Henner, G. J., painter, 133 
Heredia, Jose-Maria de, poet, 57, 

61 
Hervieu, Paul, novelist and 

dramatist, 78, 165 
Historians, 84 

Historic monuments. Preserva- 
tion of, 120 
Historical painting, 138 
Histrionic talent in France, 176 
Home, French ideas of, 6 
Hospitality of the French, 6 
Houssaye, Arsene, journalist, 

102 
Houssaj^e, Henry, historian, 84 



Hugo, Victor, reference to, 92 
Huysman, J. K, writer, 79 



Illustrated papers, 108 
Impressionism, in painting, 124 
Indecency, Crusade against, 258 
Indifference : Its dangers, 234 
Injalbert, sculptor, 155 
Irony in journalism, 88 



Janin, Jules, dramatic critic, 90 

Janssen, Pierre, astronomer, 210 

Jaures, Jean, Socialist leader, 
41, 49, 107 

Jews in France : The anti- 
Semitic campaign, 96 

Journal des D^bats, 89 

Journalism, Literary decline of, 
86 ; as a political ladder, 98 ; 
Enterprise in, 87 

Judicial assistance, 24 

K 

Klein, Abbe, literary critic, 85 



Labiche, Edouard, dramatist, 
157 

Lambert, Julliette {see Adam), 
82 

Lambinet, painter, 145 

Landscape painters, 145 

Lansyer, painter, 145 

Lapommeraye, Henri de, dra- 
matic critic, 91 

Laurens, J. P., painter, 129 

Lavedan, Henri, dramatist, 169 

Lavisse, historian, 84 

Lefebvre, Jules, painter, 134 

Le Bargy, actor, 184 

Legislator's salary, 50 

Lemaitre, Jules, critic and dra- 
matist, 85, 91, 163 

Lemoinne, John, journalist, 89 

Lerolle, Henri, painter, 144 



Index 



269 



Lesueur, Daniel, novelist, 84 
Lhermitte, Leon, painter, 144 
Liberty and justice in France, 

234 
Licensing system in France, 249 
Lights and shadows, 231 
Lisle, Lecomte de, poet, 57, 58 
Literature under the Republic, 

51 
Lockroy, Edouard, journalist 

and politician, 45 
Lorrain, Jean, poet, 67 
Loti, Pierre (Julien Viaud), 

writer, 75 
Lotteries, 255 

Loubet, Emile, statesman, 31 
Louys, Pierre, novelist, 79 
Lu9ay, Marquis of (see Roche- 
fort), 28, 93 

M 

MacMahon, Marshal, states- 
man, 30 
Mallarme, S., poet, 67 
Manet, Edouard, painter, 126 
Maret, Henry, journalist, 104 
Market gardening, 228 
Marmorek, Alexandre, bacterio- 
logist, 200 
Marriages, Business basis of, 9 ; 
Influence of parents, 10; Legal 
formalities, 11 ; The matri- 
monial market, 12-13 ; Influ- 
ence of tradition, 14 ; Hus- 
band and wife, 16, 17 
Martin, Dr. Gustave, 202 
Maubert, Louis, 155 
Maupassant, Guy de, novelist, 70 
Massenet, Jules, composer of 

music, 193 
Masters and servants, 259 
Mathematics, 210 
Meilhac, Henri, dramatist, 160 
Meissonier, painter, 126 
Meline, Jules, statesman, 44 
Menard, Louis, poet, 57 
Mendes, Catulle, poet and dra- 
matist, 57, 67, 91, 173 
Mercier, Antonin, sculptor, 154 



Messager, Andre, composer of 

music, 195 
Metayage system. The, 222 
Metchnikoff, E,, bacteriologist, 

200 
Meziere, A., political writer, 

107 
Middle class. The, 7 
Mirbeau, Octave, dramatist, 172 
Mistral, Frederic, poet, 67 
Modern currents of thought 

reflected in art, 122 
Monarchist leaders, 47 
Monet, Claude, painter, 125 
Monselet, Charles, journalist, 102 
Mont de Piete, The, 246 
Moreau, Gustave, painter, 135- 

136 
Morot, Aime, painter, 138 
Motoring : Its influence, 253 
Mounet-Sully, actor, 182 
Miiller, Mile., actress, 183 
Mun, Comte Albert de, politi- 
cian, 47 
Muntz, scientist, 203 
Music, National, 191 ; mu- 
sicians and singers, 191 

N 

" Naturalism," in literature, 

71 ; in art, 123 ; in the drama, 

172 
Neuville de, Alphonse, painter, 

142 
Noailles, Comtesse Matthieu de, 

novelist, 84 
Nobility, Legitimist and Bona- 

partist, 7 
Nude, The, in French art, 132 

O 

Ohnet, Georges, novelist, 77 
Of&cial employment, 23 
Opera, Modern French, 192 
" Opportunism," 48 
Order of Agricultural Merit, The, 

44 
Origin of the French, 2 



270 



Index 



Pailleron, Edouard, dramatist, 

159 
Painters, 122 
Parisiens, The, 3, 7 
Parliamentary system, 29 ; 

groups, 48 
Parnassians, The, 57 
Pasteur, Louis, scientist, 52, 197 
Pasteur Institute, The, 198 
Patience of the French, 232 
Peasants, Material condition of 

the, 218 
Pelletan, Camille, journalist and 

politician, 45 
Pellisier, M., critic, 85 
Pepe, Mile. V., painter, 146 
Perigord, The domed churches 

of, 116 
Personal journalism, 92 
Peyrebrunne, Mme. Georges de, 

novelist, 84 
Phylloxera, The, 226 
Physiology, 203 

Pichon, journalist and states- 
man, 99 
Piece k these. La, Origin of, 

158 
Players, 175-188 
Poetry under the Republic, 57- 

58 
Pointcare, J. H., mathematician, 

210 
Politicians, 30 ; political camps 

and coteries, 236 ; political 

intrigue, 28 
Poor, The problem of the, 244 
Pornographic tide. The, 257 
Population, The decline of, 22 
Porto-Riche, de, dramatist, 164 
Portraiture, 146 
Positivism, its influence in litera- 
ture, 52 
Presidents of the Republic, 30 
Press, The, 86 

Prevost, Marcel, novelist, 77 
Primitive husbandry, 221 
Psychological novels, 73, 74 ; 

comedies, 163 



R 

Raffaelli, painter, 147 
Ranc, Arthur, journalist and 

politician, 106 
Realism in art, 122, 127 ; in 

literature, 56 
Regie, The, 233 
Regnault, Henri, painter, 126 
Regnier, Henri de, poet, 67 
Rejane, Mme., actress, 185 
Religion and charity, 246 
Religious communities, 38-40 
Renan, Ernest, writer and philo- 
sopher, 53 
Renaissance, Original character 

of the French, 119 
Renoir, A., painter, 147 
Reval, Gabrielle, novelist, 84 
Ribot, A., statesman, 43 
Richepin, Jean, poet and dra- 
matist, 63, 173 
Rigolot, A. G., painter, 146 
Rochefort, journalist and poli- 
tician, 28, 92. 93, 94 
Rochegrosse, Georges, painter, 

139 
Rod, E., critic, 85 
Rodin, sculptor, 132, 152 
Roll, Alfred, painter, 141 
Rollinat, Maurice, poet, 67 
Rostand, Edouard, poet and 

dramatist, 65, 164-165 
Rouvier, politician, 38, 42 
Roux, Dr. Pierre, 199 
Rural France, 217 
Rustic life in art, 144 
Rustic stories, writers of, 79 



Sainte-Beuve, writer, 52, 60 
St. Marceau, sculptor, 155 
Saint-Saens, Camille, composer 

of music, 193 
Saint-Victor, Paul de, dramatic 

critic, 90 
Sarcey, Francisque, journalist 

and critic, 90 
Sardou, Victorien, dramatist, 

160, 167, 179 



Index 



271 



Satire in drama, 170 

Satirical papers, 109 

Scholl, Aurelien, journalist, 102 

Science and invention, 197 

Sculptors, 148 

Secularising France, 38 

Segond-Weber, Mme., actress, 

183 
Sege, painter, 145 
Sensationalism in art, 126 
Separation of Church and State, 

40 
Servant problem, 259 
Shooting facilities, 254 
Silvain, actor, 184 
Silvestre, Armand, poet, 67 
Simon, Jules, statesman and 

journalist, 27, 99 
Singers, 195-196 
Sisters of Charity, 246 
Sobriety in France, 248 
Social demarcation lines, 8 
Social qualities of the French, 

237 
Sorel, Albert, historian, 84 
Sorel, Mile., actress, 184 
Sports and games, 251 
Spuller, politician, 27 
Stage, State control of the, 176 
Statesmen, 27 
Statuary, 148 
Stereo-chemistry, 208 
Stipend of legislators, 50 
Sully-Prudhomme, poet, 58 



Taine, writer, 52 
Taxation, 239, 240, 255 
Theatre, The French and the, 

175 
Theatre Fran9ais, players of the, 

185 
Theatre-Libre, The, 188 



Theo, Mme., actress, 186 
Thermo-chemistry, 206 
Theuriet, Andre, novelist, 80 
Thiers, statesman, 27 
Tina3n-e, Marcelle, novelist, 84 
Tisserand, Felix, scientist, 210 
Tissot, James, painter, 128 
Tobacco growing, 230 
Trouard-Riolle, scientist, 203 
Trufher, J. C, actor, 84 

U 

" Union Liberal^, The, 49 
" Union Republicaine," 48 



Vandalism in France, 119-120 
Veuillot, Louis, journalist, 93 
Verlaine, Paul, poet, 64, 157 
Viaud, Julien (Pierre Loti), 75 
Villemot, Auguste, journalist, 102 
Villemessant, founder of the 

Figaro, 100-101 
Vigny, Alfred de, poet, 57 
Violet-Leduc, architect, 119 
Vitu, Auguste, critic, 101 
Vogue, de, critic, 85 

W 

Wagner, Influence of, 192 
Waldeck-Rousseau, statesman, 

38 
Weiss, J. J., journalist, 90 
Wild life in France, 254 
Wine growers. The, 224-226 
Wolff, Albert, journalist, 101 
Wolff, Pierre, dramatist, 174 
Women : Writers, 81 ; painters, 

147 ; sculptors, 156 
Worms, actor, 183 



Zola, Emile, writer, 46, 70 



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